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Firefox Download Day: The Numbers Across The Arab Region.

June 19, 2008 by Bakkouz  
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“And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold. The din of a million keyboards like unto a great storm shall cover the earth, and the followers of Mammon shall tremble.”
-from The Book of Mozilla, 3:31

Firefox download day (18th June) was a huge success all over the world. up till about 10 PM Jordan Local Time, a record breaking 8,490,451 copies of Firefox 3 were download worldwide in a single day.

Naturally the U.S lead the pack with around 2,617,307 downloads, followed by Germany with 703,813 downloads, Spain: 304,225 downloads, U.K: 303,236, France: 297,022, and Iran with 260,415 downloads. (Imagine that, Iran at number 6 worldwide, who would’ve known).

The numbers across the Arab world however, were not too encouraging, the most downloads in the Arab world were in Saudi Arabia with 8,326 downloads, followed by the U.A.E with 6,890 downloads, Egypt: 6,001 downloads, Morocco: 4,707 downloads, Algeria: 3,345 downloads, Tunisia: 3,903 downloads, Kuwait: 2,226 downloads, Qatar: 1,509 downloads and Jordan with 1,469. The rest of the Arab countries’ numbers are too trivial to mention.

Now, if we add up the numbers for the top Arab countries mentioned above, they sum up to 38,375 downloads, which frankly is quite disappointing, considering the fact that Israel alone scored about 33,250 downloads. and if you take into account the number of internet users in the Arab world combined compared to Israel… well, you do the math. And to add insult to injury, lets not forget Iran, the country with the 6th most downloads worldwide. we Arabs are way behind, or so it seems.

I am not sure really what to make of this, I imagined there’d be more Firefox supporters in the Arab world, especially in Jordan, but apparently, there aren’t. which is quite sad if you think about it, because if this tells us something, its that the overwhelming majority of Internet users in Jordan, and indeed the Arab world, just don’t care! dare I say even “tech un-aware”.

And I’ll tell you why…

According to This report there are 796,900 Internet users in Jordan as of September 07. Now, to have only 1,360 out of 796,900 care enough to download Firefox is just pathetic. Now, I know that more people will probably download Firefox in the upcoming days, and surely the number of Firefox users in the Jordan in particular and the Arab region in general is much larger, but still this gives us an indication, and something to ponder upon.

- As mentioned, The Numbers above were taken at 10 PM Local Jordan Time, which marks the end time for the download day. statistics from this page. Numbers now have changed and differed and are much higher but will not count for inclusion in the Guinness book of world records.

On a side note: I did download Firefox 3, But I’m not gonna use it yet, I’m sticking with FF 2 for now, since the majority of my favourite FF plugins (and indeed most FF plugins) are not yet FF 3 compatible.

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45 Comments On This Post:



  1. Abed Hamdan on Thu, 19th Jun 2008 7:25 am 

    This is no surprise my dear, and it has two indications:

    1) It shows the cultural gap between us the criminal Zionists in Occupied Palestinian territories.

    2) The good news(good at least to me, good is a very relative term my friend) is in the rising nation of Iran.

    but “us” ?? we are in the whore hole of civilization.

  2. mab3oos on Thu, 19th Jun 2008 8:04 am 

    Well,
    most of internet users in Jordan are Internet Cafe customers. then, the Persians are way more proud of their country than arabs are. So, may be they just downloaded it multiple times just to make a name for themselves.

    in regard to plug ins, all mine worked fine except for google’s text to phone.

  3. Qabbani on Thu, 19th Jun 2008 8:32 am 

    In Jordan they still prefer IE,

    In companies and internet cafes all use IE , as to my blog

    90% of my blog users using IE(6 &7)

    thought 70% of my blog visitors from Jordan

    So I guess its one of the reason no much downland

  4. Qwaider قويدر on Thu, 19th Jun 2008 9:01 am 

    I downloaded to 5 machines, I demand that my numbers be added to Jordan!

  5. Yugi on Thu, 19th Jun 2008 2:04 pm 

    I expected a much larger number of downloads from Jordan.
    Anyways, I do not think Jordanians prefer IE and they have not downloaded Firefox for this reason. The main problem, in my opinion, is that most of Jordanians started surfing the net using IE, most of them did not try other browsers and nearly all Jordanians use Windows (i.e. IE is the default browser of Windows).
    Another point, suppose a ‘IE Download Day’ is announced. How many Jordanians will download IE in 24 hours???

    (Btw, I created a Jordanian FF Facebook group, join us if you’re a fan of Firefox)

  6. za3tar on Thu, 19th Jun 2008 2:19 pm 

    that quote from the book of mozilla is old :-) .. but i am not sure i like the latest one as much.

  7. TripleM on Thu, 19th Jun 2008 3:06 pm 

    how come? :getlost: I’ve asked all my friends to download it…only one did…
    :biggrin:
    anyway the I was expecting such thing. In countries such Kuwait and UAE a lot of people are switching to Apple OS so the number of FF3 downloads are expected to be law. Another thing is that Arab users don’t know anything about such OpenSource, Freeware or anti-Microsoft communities worldwide. So, its a matter of trust we use IE at home, work, school and it comes ‘as a default with every f*ck*n Windows OS and it sometimes causes a problem conflicting with other Internet browsers. Thats why (we) tend to use it less than others..

  8. neutron on Thu, 19th Jun 2008 4:21 pm 

    IE rocks!!! I’m speaking of version 6 and down of course.

    control+tab my friends, firefox just can’t do it. For some reason they left this feature out of the new IE.

  9. Nima on Thu, 19th Jun 2008 10:22 pm 

    well, Iranians really like firefox, come on you don’t think people would multiple download just to increase numbers?

  10. Air Conditioner King on Fri, 20th Jun 2008 6:59 am 

    I’ve been also using Firefox for a couple of months and I can say that it has good features.

    Hopefully Firefox could set a world record for Guinness. :)

  11. damemode on Fri, 20th Jun 2008 3:43 pm 

    I installed it, only to uninstall it right away, 4 og my 5 plugins wasen’t supported, AND google toolbar isen’t supported either ??????

  12. Liz on Sat, 21st Jun 2008 7:09 am 

    I knew there was a reason I was putting off the download. I need my plugins! All of them! Every single one! Seriously, though, I’d be lost without the little shortcuts that make Firefox so great.

  13. מיתוג אישי on Sun, 22nd Jun 2008 2:03 am 

    Wow !!, the Firefox madness don’t stop.
    Lets kill bill’s browser (-:

  14. Rinaldo Hasibuan on Mon, 23rd Jun 2008 4:52 pm 

    yeah the plugin, that’s my favourite

  15. Zafar Ahmed on Thu, 26th Jun 2008 4:47 pm 

    Wow! I guess IE is done for huh? In some time, I guess total market domination will be by Mozilla.

  16. Feminist™ on Fri, 27th Jun 2008 9:36 am 

    I Loved the new Firefox

    i dont know how could people hate it?

  17. Neugent Reality on Sat, 28th Jun 2008 9:03 pm 

    The new firefox rocks…IE is definitely done for!

  18. xoussef on Sun, 29th Jun 2008 10:28 am 

    :shocked: i had no idea!

  19. hdtv on Thu, 3rd Jul 2008 3:14 am 

    Love the new firefox…I don’t know what I’d do if I was stuck with IE

  20. Mylovelywarderob on Thu, 3rd Jul 2008 11:15 am 

    I donwloaded the new firefox but since then I am having trouble keeping it up and running. Everyday the browser closes down at least 5 times … hmmmm I am just wondering why ..

    Another thing that crossed my mind; anybody knows about the internet penetration in the arab world ?

  21. Tim on Sun, 6th Jul 2008 8:06 am 

    Firefox kicks IE’s butt bigtime and I’m one of the 1469 that downloaded it here in Jordan and I’m not even Jordanian.

  22. Ratan on Sun, 6th Jul 2008 4:03 pm 

    i think Firefox is much better.. and more secure.. and thats the important thing.. at least its not from microsoft loool…

  23. hank freid on Mon, 7th Jul 2008 7:33 am 

    Yes i agree. So in my opinion Firefox is best of browsing.

  24. Weekly Gazette: 2008-06-21 at TripleM™ on Fri, 11th Jul 2008 5:43 pm 

    [...] Firefox Download Day: The Numbers Across The Arab Region. | Bakkouz [...]

  25. Osama Romoh on Sat, 12th Jul 2008 2:37 am 

    Firefox 3 proved to be the fastest internet browser ever. I love it. :heart:

  26. Naryat on Sun, 13th Jul 2008 9:40 am 

    looooooool
    walaaaaaa hu bhaldeereh bakkouz… 6ale3 re7leh :silly:
    2lf mabrook walak ya 27la 3areees :wub: :biggrin: :heart: :heart:

  27. Werbemittel on Sun, 13th Jul 2008 10:06 am 

    Well, thats amazing. Firefox rocks! I think FF is better and easier than IE to work with. Detail info you’ve collected btw!!

  28. Joe on Mon, 14th Jul 2008 5:31 pm 

    I think IE is over! Firefox is gonna rock the world!

  29. Nail Salon Denver on Tue, 15th Jul 2008 10:45 pm 

    Hoorah for firefox! It is the best browser ever!

  30. Southampton Letting Agent on Wed, 16th Jul 2008 12:12 pm 

    I love Firefox, its made my internet life a joy since I used to use good old slow frustrating Internet Explorer! I’d reccomend it to everyone!

  31. diorockout on Wed, 16th Jul 2008 5:36 pm 

    there is a words, “human smart not use IE”

  32. Syd McKeever on Thu, 17th Jul 2008 12:49 am 

    I’m with you… Sticking with FF2 until the plug-ins catch up with the newest release.

    I’ve been playing around with Flock a lot lately, too. It’s built on the Mozilla platform, but it’s “optimized” for the whole web 2.0/social scene. It has some potential.

  33. vivian on Thu, 17th Jul 2008 7:43 pm 

    I am using Firefox :w00t:

  34. Daniel on Sat, 19th Jul 2008 4:59 am 

    neutron What do you mean when you say ctrl+tab doesn’t work in FF, it scrolls through all open tabs on mine… what does your IE do when you hit that shortcut?

  35. Game on Mon, 21st Jul 2008 12:31 pm 

    I love Firefox, its made my internet life a joy since I used to use good old slow frustrating Internet Explorer! I’d reccomend it to everyone!

  36. Swords on Tue, 29th Jul 2008 9:12 am 

    Microsoft Internet Explorer keeps Crashing on you? Loosing all your hard work on the computer after many hours of typing? Problem: Microsoft internet explorer has alot of coding errors in it, alot of the software programming is not compatible with some web pages.

  37. BMC Software on Tue, 29th Jul 2008 11:48 am 

    Very useful piece of information indeed! A thorough research is very significant before stepping for any keyword. But Webmasters can really be pretty fruitful for anyone.

  38. Love Messages on Wed, 13th Aug 2008 6:35 pm 

    Thats really impressive research work

  39. Motorbike Jackets on Wed, 20th Aug 2008 11:50 am 

    I find Fire Fox better than Internet explorer while giving results of websites,these are the two giants which has their worths in market.

  40. yazan_gta@yahoo.com on Fri, 17th Oct 2008 4:35 pm 

    dfcvsd :sick:

  41. Ralph Adams on Sun, 9th Nov 2008 11:47 am 

    as much as I know that over 90% of Egyptians are using IE … the main reason for that little amount of fire fox users .. is that there is no marketing strategy for it in the Middle east what so ever
    my advice for every web owner that want better exposure for his business world wide is to add his site to a real business communicating site like http://uk.ezilon.com and add his site on its business section http://uk.ezilon.com/uk/business/index.shtml this way you start marketing within the UK markets

  42. Hugh Sowden on Mon, 10th Nov 2008 6:04 pm 

    Ralph .. I totally agree with you .. even though I only use fire fox .. but every one around me uses IE

    also I submitted my site on the American section of http://www.ezilon.com directory … I added it on the US business section http://search.ezilon.com/unite.....ndex.shtml and WOW … great connection man

  43. coco on Thu, 4th Dec 2008 12:30 pm 

    Firefox rocks but you need websites owners to put Firefox in their mind when designing a page !

    Firefox is not compatible with many websites but regarding security you can update Firefox in a split second, on the other hand IE updates are rare and windows update page is very slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww .

  44. Aed on Tue, 3rd Feb 2009 8:55 am 

    Thanks for in lighting me from this research. i am using fire fox it is more compatible than internet explorer i never found any inconvenience with its usage but sometimes it becomes problematic when i use my gmail access.

  45. Morgan The Directory Link on Sun, 26th Apr 2009 11:35 am 

    I am using different internet browsers right now. But Firefox is my favorite, if not the best.

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