Firefox set for milestone
Web browser Firefox is on the verge of receiving one billion downloads.
The Mozilla Foundation, developer of the open-source software, has predicted that the landmark figure will be reached on Friday, July 31st 2009.
This number includes users that have manually updated their existing software to take advantage of the latest updates but excludes those that have downloaded it automatically.
A new consumer-facing website entitled OneBillionPlusYou.com will be launched once the milestone has been passed.
Launched in 2004, Firefox has since established itself as one of the world’s most popular browsers with an estimated 31 per cent market share. It is second only to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer application, which boasts 60 per cent penetration.
Firefox 4.0 preview
The technology industry was granted a sneak-peek of the browser’s latest incarnation this week when screenshots of the upcoming Firefox 4.0 were released.
The application is expected to continue the rise of Firefox – the third version was downloaded over eight million times in 24 hours, setting a new Guinness world record in the process.
In other web technology news, a study was published this week that compared click-through rates at various search engines.
Search advertising network Chitika investigated browsing habits by examining 50,000 websites over a seven-day time period.
It reported that Google users who landed on sites following an organic search had an ad click-through rate of 0.97 per cent, while Yahoo! had 1.24 per cent.
The search engine with the highest rate, however, was Microsoft’s recently-launched Bing search engine with 1.5 per cent.
