Yesterday was the official release of Firefox 3 and there was a large marketing push to get as many people world wide to download it.
For those interested in the 24-hour breakdown per country, the Mozilla team put together an interactive global map that allows you to see how many times FF was downloaded in each country.
With over 7 million downloads in 10 different languages, this map can serve as a rough guide for tech generalizations.
Unsurprisingly regions gripped with central planning and socialism rank at the very bottom. For instance, North Korea has had a grand total of zero downloads (due primarily to the fact that only one internet cafe exists in the entire country, personal computers are verboten and all communication is heavily regulated and censored).
On the other end of the spectrum most of the industrialized world and West are nearly ranked according to their respective GDPs, with America, Germany and Japan taking the top 3 spots.
And while there all sorts of odd numbers to be gleaned (like itty bitty Singapore flying equal with its significantly larger neighbors), the numbers within the Middle East are striking. As of this writing:
Iran: 208,215
Saudi Arabia: 7,412
Kuwait: 1,962
Qatar: 1,265
Iraq: 235
Of course, it could be argued that the numbers are skewed because the same user may be downloading multiple copies, but there doesn’t seem to be much evidence of a nationalistic push to compete in the FF3 Download Olympics (USA! USA!).
Much more could be written about ratios comparing total population with FF3 downloads or total amount of households with internet access with FF3 downloads. However, considering that even Iraq’s smallest peer speaks the same language, I think it is safe to say that the Arabic language is not a limiting factor, nor are time zones.
Rather, it is yet another footnote in the costs of occupation. Who is to blame for destroying the infrastructure and failing to rebuild it to even pre-war levels. (Here are some contemporary numbers from IWS)
Unfortunately, even with all of the neato features in this latest FF version, Iraqis don’t have the wonderful opportunity to worry about automated malware protection when basic services like electricity and running water are still unavailable (you know they actually have had to ration oil-products there too, right?). Maybe the numbers will jump after another few surges.
Legitimate milestone, maybe not. But it is difficult to see how another 5 years of occupation and enhanced interrogation will make the 4.0 release for Iraq any more popular. Maybe additional waterboarding will motivate them.
[Cross-posted to Mises.org]
17 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Equally shocking was Somalia’s showing (12 last time I saw). A few years ago, before their self-appointed “government” was installed by Ethiopian troops, Somalia had some of the most affordable internet access in all of Africa.
I have to admit to being a bit out of the loop here. What exactly is this? Is it free? How can that be?
The Mozilla Foundation, which is responsible for Firefox (among other things) is a non-profit, just like Antiwar.com. They were originally funded through donations, though nowadays the vast, vast majority of their funding comes from the built-in Google search feature.
Invade a country accused of whatever. Kill hundreds of thousands of its people while destroying its infrastructure along with a functioning society. Foment civil wars and create a compliant puppet government. Make treaties and pacts with this government that insure your oil friends have access to their natural resources forever. Station your military in country, permanently, to protect your friends’ “business”.
Isn’t spreading democracy wonderful?
Iran is leading the Middle East. Which brave Congressional leader will be the first to propose that the US download be renamed Freedomfox 3.0?
“Freedomfox 3.0.” Good one, Piers!
The Neocon version will be named ChickenFox 1.0
And don’t forget FireFight 1.0 for the warmongers.
Yes. And the Iranians are Mozillo-fascists!
Soon the Mozilla Foundation will be accused of giving aid and support for a terrorist nation!?
How many firefox downloaders in happy states, sad states and failed ones went to serious news sites? Prolly like 2 percent. I have serious tits if anyone’s interested–LUUUUUUUUUV my absolute FREEEEEEEEEEDOM!!!
Fascinating breakdown…here are the top downloaders over 100,000 as of about ten minutes ago (I just cut and pasted the data from the page source, opened it in Excel, and sorted). Iran is #7.
United States 3,751,302
Germany 1,046,038
Japan 674,829
United Kingdom 480,056
Spain 433,622
France 427,298
Iran 371,689
Lithuania 361,360
Italy 357,551
Canada 348,076
Poland 305,208
Brazil 274,878
China 257,589
Netherlands 225,006
Australia 196,459
Romania 171,247
Russia 156,392
India 141,196
Turkey 136,615
Mexico 131,432
Hungary 124,984
Switzerland 120,896
Taiwan 113,788
Austria 107,696
Argentina 102,929
Sweden 100,744
The Ivan Eland article in Today’s Highlights is vile nonsense. By demanding that the Arab population be ethnically cleansed into homogeneous religious enclaves in the mistaken belief that it will stop the guerrilla war, the site is effectively advocating massive war crimes. Amusingly, the Kurds don’t need to have their families and neighborhoods destroyed to suit American whims, but they’re more tolerant of the occupation so they don’t need to be collectively punished (which is also a war crime).
He piously laments that the occupation has forcibly expelled millions of Iraqis from their homes but insists they’ll be slaughtered if they return. You got that one right Ivan! He also revives the canard that the Baath party was “Sunni” (presumably exclusively) when in reality it was mainly Shia and quite secular. Then there’s the ludicrous threat that there’ll be “an all-out civil war” if America ever stops murdering, torturing, and exiling millions of recalcitrant Iraqis.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time he has advocated ethnically cleansing millions of people to aid the American colonization of Iraq.
While getting Anti(?)war.com to stop linking to prowar gibberish is obviously a forlorn task, perhaps you could at least stop paying people to write it?
Ivan Lelnad is an excellent writer and a credit to antiwar.com
He might be an excellent writer ,but his knowldge about Iraq and its people is quite lacking.He is no difference from so many in the west who think that they got the solutions to other non- western countries problems .Many of these problems were the results of the west imposed or thought of solutions to begin with.His solution to the US created problems in Iraq,is not much difference from what the neo-cons had planned for Iraq from the begging.And once again,the Iraqi people are totally ignored as if Iraq belongs to some one else.And once again,the future of Iraq is being decided by people in Wsahington Dc,London,or San Fransico!
His solution to the US created problems in Iraq, is not much difference from what the neo-cons had planned for Iraq from the beginning.
Yes. If the neoconservatives and
antiwar.com are both demanding that Iraq gets partitioned, then something is very wrong with this site.