Firefox downloads highlight digital divide

[ld13]

I'm not sure you can compare Africa to Australia. Okay they're both continents. But one of them has extensive broadband connectivity ....

Africa or Australia? Also taking in mind that Australia is one country and Africa not.

 

[Vrotappel]

Bar few million European settlers, Africa is still climbing social emancipation ladder.

Sorry it is not climbing - every day it is falling further behind. It will never catch up with the rest of the world.

 

[undesign]

Anyone know how many people in South Africa, do use FIREFOX, I am thinking in the region of around 50 million people or less.

 

[kronoSX]

At least we did over a 1000,which for me is fine.Not everyone likes firefox and afaik any normal pc user looks for a E on a desktop if there is a connection

 

[.Froot.]

All thats due to Telkom were so far behind!

The FF DD was a good marketing campaign, but they can't quite claim its the most downloads in 24 hours.
When MS release a patch there's a few hundred million downloads of it within the first 24 hours.

Yeah but that's called virus distribution

 

[LCBXX]

This "highlight" only proves that there are (currently) 11-million "tech-savvy" people in a world with a population of 6-billion+.

The rest of the people on the planet don't care with what they browse, as long as they can browse, nor do they care about this "Firefox" showing some digital divide.

 

[divmax]

Not that I disagree with the fact that there is a digital divide. But using FireFox Downloads as a benchmark for that, is typical of the egotism I have come to expect from a certain segment of FireFox users. In fact, its reminiscent of Mac user arrogance.

Those numbers dont account at all for "tech-savvy" users which dont use FireFox nor care about downloading it on the first day.

On the flip-side, those numbers include hordes of people who simply think its trendy or got caught up in the hype of the day. How is this an indicator for immensity of the digital divide?

 

[apogeeza]

Whether SA is generally "tech-savvy" or not, or whether we are on the wrong side of the "digital divide" misses the fact that the SA browser market is historically very loyal to IE ("hey, it's already installed, so why do I need a better one?" and "Oh? you mean there are other browsers? Gee, kids today really are clever!" and "My name is SLAPPY, Bill rulez.")

So for SA to knock up over 30,000 FF3 downloads (the last time I checked the site) is just brilliant IMHO.

 

[Nuxxy]

I use Avant Browser. My wife uses Firefox, but didn't download ver 3. Article means nothing really.

 

[fritzm]

Those figures are also skewed because downloads from the SA mirror ( mirror.ac.za) were not included. Since they had a copy almost from the moment it was released, anyone with an eye to limiting overseas bandwidth was using the local mirror. Very useful site BTW, and give fast download speeds; I saw their traffic figures when Ubuntu Hardy Heron was released, and it was impressive.

Fritz

 

[apogeeza]

Congrats to SA FF3 downloaders

Somehow I doubt that the auditors will accept the stats of mirrors, torrents, adept auto-update and other distro repositories etc. since the logistics involved in securing pure counts would be too difficult and open to abuse by some (yes, those do exist) who would wantonly inflate/deflate the figures.

Another useful site is this:
http://downloadcounter.sj.mozilla.com/

aahh, I see it's back up:
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord
now reports 32,046 downloads for SA.

Congrats to SA nonetheless, even if the figures are off. Great job to all.

 

[ike]

i remember an article some months back saying morocco (i think) has higher download speeds than us. now why would they have so much fewer downloads. all i remember we were way down - speedwise - even in africa

 

[LazyLion]

i remember an article some months back saying morocco (i think) has higher download speeds than us. now why would they have so much fewer downloads. all i remember we were way down - speedwise - even in africa

their population is smaller.... around 30 mil.

 

[Tns]

Africa or Australia? Also taking in mind that Australia is one country and Africa not.

africa is not a country btw it is a continent. then again who cares? other people have things we want and visa versa.Until people change their minds (and this goes for everyone) nothing will change including "broadband"

 

[ld13]

africa is not a country btw it is a continent.

I know, Who ever told you that Africa is a country?

 

[Tns]

I know, Who ever told you that Africa is a country?

some people believe that as they do lions roaming the streets