Firefox Download Counter: What It Was and What to Use Now
In 2005 the firefox download counter was a badge of honour: fans put live tickers on their sites to show the world how fast Firefox was spreading. This guide explains what those counters were, why they disappeared, and how you can count downloads on your own site today.
Quick answer: Mozilla once published the running Firefox download total as an RSS feed, and fans turned it into badges, scripts, browser extensions and WordPress plugins. Those feeds and counter tools are long gone, so a Firefox download counter can no longer be added to a site. If you want to count downloads of your own files, use a download tracking plugin or your analytics tool instead.
Table of Contents
What was the firefox download counter?
Firefox 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004, and the community campaign around it was run through Spread Firefox, Mozilla’s marketing site. Firefox fans developed counters and feeds to track Firefox downloads in real time. Many of these tools were made by the hard-working Firefox teams, supporters and fans, so adding a counter to your site was a way to cheer the browser on.
It all started when Firefox released its download count as an RSS feed. People quickly found ways to use it.
The counters we listed in 2005
- Tickerfox: a Firefox extension that showed the latest download count ticking away in the browser status bar.
- Infocraft Firefox counter: a popular script that used the XMLHttpRequest object to pull the count from the feed in the background, with instructions for adding it to your website. It needed some PHP knowledge.
- PHP and iframe scripts: quick scripts that read the total downloads from the RSS feed and displayed it on a page.
- Animated Firefox Download Counter: a Greasemonkey user script that added an animated counter to the corner of web pages. You could fade it, drag it around, or double-click to close it.
- JavaScript counters: Firefox Tutor offered a CSS-styled JavaScript counter, plus cut-and-paste scripts.
- ASP script: retrieved the Spread Firefox download count for ASP web pages.
- WordPress plugin: let bloggers print the current number of Firefox downloads anywhere in their templates.
For non-coders, the simplest choice was a Live Firefox Badge, a standard 80-by-15 pixel badge with a live count inside an inline frame, which you could paste onto any page.
Why Firefox download counters disappeared
The counters only worked while Mozilla published the count. Spread Firefox was retired in 2011, and the feeds, badges and scripts that depended on it stopped working. The old links from this article now go nowhere, so we have removed them.
The milestones were impressive while they lasted. Firefox passed 500 million downloads on February 21, 2008 (we covered the Firefox 500 million downloads celebration), and over one billion by July 2009. Mozilla noted these figures counted downloads, not users.
Today Firefox is still free from the official Firefox website (external site). If you use it, our list of Firefox extensions for social media is a good next stop.
How to add a download counter to your own site today
If what you really want is a counter for files you offer (an ebook, a template, an app), these options work now:
- Download Monitor (external site): a free WordPress plugin that tracks downloads of files you upload and can show the count next to the download link.
- Google Analytics (external site): GA4 can record file downloads as events through its enhanced measurement settings, so you can see counts in your reports.
- GitHub releases: if you publish software on GitHub (external site), its releases show download counts for each asset through the API.
Keep public counters honest: a small number can put visitors off, so many sites only show the count once it is large.
FAQ
Can I still add a Firefox download counter to my site?
No. Mozilla no longer publishes the live download feed, so the old badges and scripts no longer work.
What was Spread Firefox?
Spread Firefox was Mozilla’s community marketing site, launched in 2004 and closed in 2011, which ran campaigns and the “Get Firefox” button program.
How many times was Firefox downloaded?
Firefox passed 500 million downloads in February 2008 and over one billion by July 2009, according to Mozilla’s counts at the time.
How do I count downloads of my own files?
Use a download tracking plugin such as Download Monitor on WordPress, or track file download events in Google Analytics.
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Sorry the url didn’t paste for some reason:
http://www.firefoxtutor.com/21/firefox-counter/
I’ve just created a new Javascript version that also allows you to customize with css. It includes the optional ability to link to http://www.getfirefox.com.
How would I add it to my blogspot?
Just add one of the image source codes as suggested in your template and republish.
I don’t know if you’re still keeping track, but I just wrote a WordPress plugin using a modified (for CURL) version of the PHP counter.
“I also found this neat FF counter on this site.”
Wow. It’s cool to click on a link in someone’s blog and see one’s own site.
I just used the info from the Info craft HowTo and used some html goodness to use a SpreadFirefox button as the background, with a minor mod to the image to add “Downloads” so people would know what it was counting. Feel free to use my modified image and html code.
Steve Scrimpshire
Webmaster – http://semperphi.com