Firefox gets billionth download

Less than five years after it launched, Mozilla's open-source browser has hit the billion download milestone. The landmark download, which came on Friday 31 July, is celebrated at Mozilla's 1,000,000,000 + you website. But hitting 1 billion downloads doesn't mean the same number of people use the browser. Mozilla estimates that there are, in fact, 300 million Firefox users, up from 175 million a year earlier. The latest version of Firefox, version 3.5, has been shipped in 75 languages, more than any other browser. Read the transcript of Web User's chat with Mozilla Europe president Tristan Nitot on Firefox 3.5 Although Firefox has made significant inroads into Internet Explorer's market share, it still remains in second place by a significant margin. Figures suggest that Firefox now has nearly one-third of the browser market worldwide, at 31 per cent. Internet Explorer still dominates the field with around 60 per cent, while Google's Chrome, Apple's Safari and Opera together comprise less than 5 per cent. It's been reported that IE8 has been downloaded more than 200 million times since its release in March, which is one-fifth of Firefox's total downloads in a much shorter period of time. IE8: watch our first look video