Download counter = crap!

Shouldn't all the people who copy Fx to Flash drives or CD's and give it t all of there friends. cancel out the people who download Firefox and not use it?

This is something that is becoming increasingly valid over time because whilst the download numbers can only rise, users can rise or fall.  Its not good enough to say well that isnt true, because if your figures/statistics arent accurate or proove anything to specific, then whats the point in them?

We may have 150 million downloads but only 80 million users, thats only just half success rate of people actually using the product, the other maybe half didnt like it enough to keep it, what does that say, how can we proove how true it is?  We cant with download numbers, and we have to accept it is true to some extent, just to what extent we cant proove.  The download count doesnt count all mirrors, or the many other ways actual people acquire and use Firefox which are becoming increasingly common over time.  These include via CD's, portable devices, network deployment and more.

So over time downloads is increasingly in-accurate, and somewhat irrelevent with these factors, it does not rate accurately how many people in the market use Firefox, how many tried it and didnt keep it, it doesnt show any success rate, all of which becoming truer everyday, so less accuracy and relevent over time should be met with less emphasis.

Should we ditch the download count, no it is good to have, but we do have to recognise what it is, what its telling us, what its not, and what to regard it as in terms of success rate, usage and more.

With all of the factors noted above it is becoming increasingly clear that usage statistics are more and more relevent in terms of actual usage, success rate, growth and more.  This will be at SFx with the upgrades hopefully prominently due to all these factors, and there are sites that have good statistics sites now such as http://www.xitimonitor.com/ and many others.  Plus sites are being worked on to collate statistics from many stat counters and sites which will give a very accurate measure of actual usage of the product in various parts of the globe, to measure usage, success rate, growth in certain countries, success of marketing campaigns, factors holding back growth in some areas, usages versus downloads to show the % of people not only downloading and trialling a product, but keeping it - all of which immensely more accurate and invaluable.

The counter is great! It let us firefox users celebrate at 150,000,000 downloads! And soon we will all celebrate 200,000,000. The download counter does tell us how many people use firefox. If you think downloading isn't considered being a user, you are wrong. 

From Answers.com: User - Any individual who interacts with the computer at an application level.
Programmers, operators and other technical personnel are not considered
users when working in a professional capacity on the computer.

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Wise Up,  Firefox is coming, Bill gates' pockets will no longer be lined - i recommend it to everyone (and install it if needed).

Of all the people downloading it, everyone recommends someone - and,  the proof of the pudding is in the eating so,  everyone that it is recommended to will try it (if 30% like it )YEEEEEE HAAAAA! it is only a matter of time.

Resistance is futile, for gates and his lapdogs.

I.E. WILL BE EXTINCT
 

First of all, the old abbreviation FF now hurts my eyes, as everyone started using the standard Fx recommended by Mozilla. I used FF for a long, but changed. It has no connection with the word Firefox.
Do you know that bible story "David and Golias" ?
The short David won a giant Golias with a stone launcher (I don't know the english name).
As Mozilla has little marketing power comparing to the billionary Microsoft, using download counter is a good way to show the INTEREST of people in GETTING Firefox and that's all.
Don't say anything here is crap. It's impolite...

Towards 100 million Fx Downloads Celebration

....84 million downloads means? You may like to download stuff for no reason, but I like to think I download something to use. Most of those 84 million downloads arent just sitting EXEs in temp directories. They have, even if briefly, been installed.

And if a small percentage of that 84 mill stick to it, then FF has won, and the counter has been a success. Its not a stat, its a marketting tool.

Why don't you take the counter for what it is: A nice gimmick that shows the number of downloads?
There was never, is not and will never be a connection between the number of users and the number of downloads. True, many people don't get this right, but that's the way it is.

Of course you can cheat the counter by downloading FF again and again, but as you said: What good would that do??

Ethan is right, but as I have already mentioned in the FF marketing ideas forum, a lot of people are using this 'user agent switcher' thing. Surely if people are using this to get to websites that they wouldn't normally have access to in FF, then the statistics are going to be wrong, and even though a download counter doesn't show how many people are using it, I'm guessing it is going to be more accurate in the end.
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Give your fox more fire...alternative promos

You're kind of misunderstanding the download counter. It's mainly a novelty, just something cool to put on your page.

Besides that, I think it does say a lot that there are 2 downloads a second. And they aren't from bots downloading; most download servers only allow a reasonable number of downloads of one file from one IP address, because it is a waste of bandwidth to let bots download stuff over and over again. It wouldn't even work on dialup where you can just disconnect and reconnect after every download(which resets the IP address), because it would take some time to download each one, especially with a reconnect between each download.

Overall though the counter remains a fun widget.