Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

Depends how those percentage figures are calculated, really. A lot of the Opera hits on my site still pretend they're IE.

ant, any stats package worth its salt can identify Opera as Opera and not IE. See this post for more information on why that's a bogus claim.

- A

Asa,

I appreciate all your hard yards at MoFo but don't slag these guys. If they really believe it then let them. No bad press for MoFo please.

Either they mean 100 000,000 downloads or they are counting since 1998.

I believe it. Opera has been around a *lot* longer. While I'm not a current Opera user, I've downloaded it at least 4-5 times at different releases to try it out. By comparison, I've downloaded Firefox about 15 times (various 0.9x, 1.0.x and 1.5 on a few computers) and I'm an avid Mozilla user.

Many people download Opera to have it as a second or third browser, though 100.000.000 million is really hard to believe.

Does this number probably include the downloads for mobile phones?

Oh, well forget what I said then. I just poked around with the stats thing I use and it does detect Opera correctly. Oddly enough I get twice as many visitors using Konqueror...

I downloaded it once to try it out. Since then it has been sitting on my hard drive largely unused.

Asa,

It just claims a 100 million downloads. I assume that includes all versions of Opera. I have downloaded it almost every version the last six or so years. So that is not that surprising.

However, if it is 100 million of the latest version, I would be very concerned for Opera. I think it is a good browser. There are some choices they have made that I disagree with but they do a great job innovating. I hope they continue. But if they are only converting a few people per a million downloads, they have some real work and choices to make.

What is that page? I can't find a link to it from Opera.com.

As I read the chart at http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=7 it seems that Firefox have primarily gotten users from IE5.0 and IE5.5 while IE6.0 users are nearly constant. But it might ofcourse also be caused by IE5.x users switching to IE6.0 at the same rate that IE6.0 users are switching to Firefox. Ah, statistiks, you get to make up your own story. But it will be interesting to see what happens when there are no more IE5.x users.

Well, as has been pointed out, downloads are not proportional to %. As far as I am aware Firefox reports its number of downloads 1.0, which slightly skews things as so far you have had to redownload every increment you want to update Firefox. I imagine Firefox will continue to do so and happily report when or if it ever gets to 200, 500 or 1000 million downloads since 1.0 was released. This will not mean at 1000 million downloads Firefox will have approximately 90 - 110% of the web based on different statistical survey, it's possible that if Firefox ever reaches that point it will have less of the web in % than whatever Opera has now.

However, I too am not so easily convinced by Opera just sticking it on their web page and saying it is so, I would like some evidence to back such a claim up. But I doubt you will get many Opera people to talk on this because all it would highlight is how much faster Firefox was able to achieve this figure.

About those statistics: Does anyone know where they're collected from? That is, from where in the world? Are they from mostly sites in USA, or Europe, Asia, etc. Or are they evenly spread? How about the traffic to those sites?

Just curious if these are statistics from particular regions of the world or not.

Opera has been around for years. It's very likely it's done 100 million or more, but what time frame? Perhaps you should email them about that instead of (what seems like to me) picking on a competitor.

I like using both Opera and Firefox. Firefox's extensions are the best, but I've yet to see any Mozilla product match the speed, integrated features and low resource usage of Opera.

Cheers.

Barring clarification, I'd have to go with it being cumulative. IIRC you guys at Mozilla have gone to some effort to avoid double-counting, say, 1.0, 1.0.2, 1.0.3, etc. but of course Opera has had 8 full versions over the course of a decade, so even if they're trying to avoid double-counting 8.50 and 8.51, there's still all those downloads from 5, 6, and 7.

However they counted, it's still a nifty stat to reach -- kind of like making your millionth sale, or millionth dollar, even though you've been pushing those revenues back into capital or development and don't have all 1 million dollars with you at that moment.

I agree with Tim -- based on marketshare, that number is much nicer if it's cumulative than if it's just version 8+.

I like their browser alot, but they are kind of cocky developers.

it is obvious that operas UA could be the reason IE has so much user share. I am 100% sure there is more than 1% share for opera. that i can back up. once they change user agent to default opera the share will be up.

"How is it that when Firefox reached 100,000,000 downloads we had earned about 10% of the browser market share and when Opera reached 100,000,000 downloads, they haven't even broken the 1% mark?"
That's a stupid statement. You can't have reliable statistics for the whole world! You can't say "Opera has 1% marketshare" based on statistics from one region. For example, in Poland, Opera has 6.6% marketshare(http://ranking.pl/rank.php?stat=browPL) and that's about 700,000 users, in Czech Republic Opera is at 3.4% and 150000(http://www.rankings.cz/rank.php?stat=browPL) and in Latvia at 5.7% (http://www.ranking.lt/rank.php?stat=browPL) at 43000 users. It's pretty popular in Russia and Japan also, though I haven't any stats to back it up since I cant't read russian and japaneese. So in theese three countries only, Opera has about 900,000 users total. So that's not some unrealistic download count. It's pretty real alright. Say, Opera has in total about 15 milion users worldwide, and if each user got himself a version of Opera about four(8.00, 8.01, 8.50, 8.51) times, so that makes about 60 million downloads alone. You can add up new users to this number, users who tried Opera because it wen't ad free, and so on.

"it is obvious that operas UA could be the reason IE has so much user share. I am 100% sure there is more than 1% share for opera. that i can back up. once they change user agent to default opera the share will be up."

Re-read the thread above your post.

User agent aside, Opera has the most aggressive caching of any browser. Going back and forward is instantaneous -- the server is not hit. This, to my mind, is the most important factor.

Opera has been around for 10 years, Firefox for 2 years. The math is easy Asa, learn it.

Blah, look at the Firefox stats from those countries. If I followed your logic, Firefox should have more than half a billion downloads to have the market share it has in those countries (clearly more than it actually has.)

LeoPetr, caching in no way affects web stats. None of the web analytics companies measure hits, they measure users. Whether or not a browser has good caching has zero impact on web stats from any of the top stat sources.

- A

poop, ahh, that might make some sense. I could believe that Opera gets about 10 million downloads a year. Assuming they're mostly repeat downloads as new versions become available, and assuming about half of the people who download stick with it, then Opera might have about 5 million users which would work out pretty well to account for that sub 1% market share pretty well.

So should Firefox then claim several hundred million downloads it's had of all versions combined? That seems rather disingenuous. Heck, Firefox contains some code that's existed since way back in the Netscape days. Maybe we should claim all of those downloads as well and announce that we've had a billion downloads.

- A

I don't really care what should Firefox claim. Number of downloads is a number of downloads. It's just a marketing tool. They don't claim to have 100000000 of users after all. Don't you have some real work to do at Mozilla?

I don´t give a damn about how many users/downloads/whatever Opera has but I do care about some really nasty bugs that FF has right now ( huge memory leak anyone?).

Perhaps you should spend more time doing, you know,... your job instead of posting bizarre blog entries for fanboys.

I can´t believe this guy is the face of Mozilla. And some people still wonders why we (Firefox users) have such a bad reputation all over the net.

The only thing it makes me wonder is why on Earth Asa still lets people comment without registering, which basically makes the comments section on here a cesspool.

Even counting back to 1999 there's no way Opera's had 100,000,000 downloads. That assumes that the current rate has been maintained all the way back, which is blatantly false.

- Chris

I just ran across an Opera browser page that claims 100,000,000 downloads.

How come?. Do you surf Opera.com on a daily basis or do you enter random URLs?. This blog is the first site that mentions the page. Neither Opera nor Google has a link to that page.

Where did this URL came from?. Someone at Google told you about this?.

You should explain it since you seem so concerned about what Opera does.

Why everybody is assuming that 100.000.000 downloads = 10% marketshare?. There are many variables involved here. Just because FF has 100.000.000 downloads and 10% marketshare (both numbers are highly debatable) doesn´t make it a rule.

Googlebot, I make it my business to know what's going on with the world of browsers. I didn't get the URL from anyone at Google :-)

- A

Firefox 10% share? FX numbers or all mozilla browsers together? (including netscape, etc.)

For the record, I downloaded Opera, and have yet to use it for browsing. All I do is test my webdesigns in it before putting them online :D

"I don´t give a damn about how many users/downloads/whatever Opera has but I do care about some really nasty bugs that FF has right now ( huge memory leak anyone?).

Perhaps you should spend more time doing, you know,... your job instead of posting bizarre blog entries for fanboys. "

Perhaps you should shut up and realise that Firefox is a free browser, and stop compaining about its bugs. Everybody knows FF is a memory hog, I don't see how complaining in a blog is going to get it fixed any faster.

Please, post comments relative to blog entries instead of having a go at Asa.

Perhaps you should shut up and realise that Firefox is a free browser, and stop compaining about its bugs. Everybody knows FF is a memory hog, I don't see how complaining in a blog is going to get it fixed any faster.

wow, how nice of you :\ did he press a wrong button? Opera is also free as always and gets bugs fixed as fast as it can. Hasn't this bug been there since the 1.5 alphas/betas? Oh well.

"Why everybody is assuming that 100.000.000 downloads = 10% marketshare?"

Because those the best estimates we have in this case:
Mozilla cont 100,000,000 downloads. Independent webstat orgs count %10. It's natural to want to associate the two.

Looks like Operawatch is now on the story as well:
http://operawatch.blogspot.com/

"Perhaps you should shut up and realise that Firefox is a free browser, and stop compaining about its bugs."

This makes no sense to me. Opera is now a free browser, and that doesn't hold me back from complaining about its quality. The instinct to complain or praise seems primarily based on warning others, not necessarily on trying to change things. Thus, if one sees a problem, one has ample motivation to talk about it. Sparking change is just gravy.

If we go with the "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" theory, then no one should be complaining about Microsoft, ever.

I don't care for this Orwellian system you seem to be proposing.

Because those the best estimates we have in this case:
Mozilla cont 100,000,000 downloads. Independent webstat orgs count %10. It's natural to want to associate the two.

It seems that you didn´t get the point of the OP...

The figure is provided with little information or specifics, meaning a lot of speculation, perceptiong differences occuring.

It may well be true that Opera has been downloaded 100 million times. It goes without saying that of course that is likely to be something like, since it was first ever launched, or something more extreme of similar.

If it is not true or regardless, have a think about downloads verses usage, which is something thats not being understood.

Perhaps it has been downloaded 100 million times in the past year, lets just say, but its still on 1%! How is that possible when Firefox had 100 million downloads and 10% usage?

Because as someone else has already pointed out, downloads does not mean usage or anything like. All this story does is emphasise that.

Its like saying, 1 billion people tried our Nivea cream last month verses 1000 of our competitors, so we must have more usage. Well no, it means you must have had more people TRY, your product, it does not mean more people are using your product. Two entirely different things, one increasingly irrelevent.

Opera could have been downloaded a total of 1 billion times but still have 1% usage, because there's downloading, testing, trialling, occasionally using a product, and there's having it as your most or only used product of that type.

Firefox could be downloaded another 100 million times in February, that doesnt mean usage will follow the same lead.

It could mean those extra 100 million downloaders are spreading those downloads via CD, on networks and more to another 100 million people, in which case there may or may not be 200 million new users, so usage/market share would be much higher.

It could to the contrary mean those 100 million downloaders download/trialled/tested a product much like a person does with wine, but decided to never use it, in which case download numbers would double, browser market share stay roughly the same.

This doesnt thus far happen to such extremes, but it does of course happen a lot and increasingly so, its just some of the variables, factors, all of which increasing and morel likely, common and more.

This needs to be understood when talking about the different types of statistics, and particularly downloads, the time stretch, usage etc.

I'm not proposing any sort of Orwellian system :D I just think that you should post comments relevant to the blog post instead of bashing firefox about it's huge memory leak - these kind of opinions are best emailed direct to the developers.

Perhaps you should shut up and realise that Firefox is a free browser, and stop compaining about its bugs. Everybody knows FF is a memory hog, I don't see how complaining in a blog is going to get it fixed any faster.

LOL, Did (s)he touch a nerve?.

You gotta love this, there´s a showstopper bug in FF since the Beta days, a guy gets fustrated because the Q&A team at Mozilla (aka Asa Dotzler) is more focused on typing random URLs with the word Opera in it than fixing the bug, then a fanboy from Asa´s praetorian guard comes to the rescue arguing that Firefox is free and everybody knows that Firefox is a memory hog anyway so nobody can complain about this bug.

This blog entry has the potential of being the most hilarious thread ever. Heck, even Thumper posted here...

"Googlebot, I make it my business to know what's going on with the world of browsers. I didn't get the URL from anyone at Google :-)"

Strange, because Google doesn't have the page in the index:
http://www.google.com/search?hs=Pt7&hl=en&lr=&client=opera&rls=pl&q=http%3A%2F%2Fopera.com%2Fsplash%2Fgoogle%2F&btnG=Search

Could you post the query you used to find it? Thank you.

I think Asa needs to set the record straight. Where did he find this URL? Cause it's not listed anywhere else.

Which means that one must assume that he got it from somewhere he shouldn't have, which means that he could be in breach of an NDA, or the person who sent it to him (Google employee?) could be in breach of his.

We're talking criminal charges here unless Asa can explain himself.

And of course, Opera's caching beats other browsers so there's no wonder it's undercounted. It has at least 5 per cent in most of Europe anyway, according to stats, so the 0,55 per cent claim is clearly bogus.

Hmm...

http://img357.imageshack.us/my.php?image=googlesplashsearch1xn.png
http://img357.imageshack.us/my.php?image=googlesplashsearch25jo.png

I make it my business to know what's going on with the world of browsers. I didn't get the URL from anyone at Google :-)

This is hardly an explanation.

The URL was not available anywhere but here so either you found it manually (I don´t think you enjoy typing/guessing URLs in order to see if you can find a new page at Opera.com - especially with the words Google and splash) or someone at Google told you about this (Ben Goodger?) wich means that there´s a break in a non-disclosure agreement.

You should explain yourself because perhaps the blog entry was posted as "stuff for fanboys" but you, and whoever told you this at Google could have serious issues. This is not "yet another silly post by Asa bashing Opera" anymore.

Do you think that both Google and Opera are happy about your new work: realising breaks in non-disclosure agreements?.

I am sure Asa will use the argument that the URL is not password protected or anything like that to keep it private, but I'd like to pre-empt that excuse and point out that neither Opera's own site search nor Google have any knowledge of the URL. It must be very new, and not indexed by anything yet, so the only people who would know about it are the ones that are told by someone else that it exists. And only "insiders" in Opera or Google would have known.

That was the page shown when I went to http://www.opera.com/ last night. It was absolutely impossible to miss. The news in the Opera forums is that an overzealous employee at Opera (someone *over*zealous about Opera? I picture some guy in a question mark suit running around being chased by browser police!) posted that on the main page by mistake. I think Opera is the one that should be explaining themselves right now, rather than trying to cover up their mistake.

How many hours ago was that, Steve? I visited opera.com "last night" and did not get that page. Why would you visit www.opera.com?

Stop trying to cover up for Asa. The URL has clearly not been made public. The only way to find it is if you go there directly. It is not linked from anywhere else.

@Steve Chapel

That was the page shown when I went to http://www.opera.com/ last night. It was absolutely impossible to miss.

FUD .Prove it. http://opera.com/splash/google/ instead of Opera.com?. Yeah.

You are a well known Opera hater anyway, what a surprise...

The news in the Opera forums is that an overzealous employee at Opera posted that on the main page by mistake.

LOL. you are making this up just to excuse Asa.

Come on, people...

I'm an Opera user, but this is pathetic. If Steve says he saw that, there's no reason to believe that he didn't. Why should he cover for anyone?

I also saw rijk's post in Opera's forums where he stated that the whole thing was just a draft. So, someone must have linked it to the front page by accident.

Accidents happen. Shit happens. So what? And it's perfectly normal to include silly things in drafts - once I held an official presentation of a product, only to realize that one slide had the phrase "And yes, it even includes the kitchen sink!", which I forgot to remove.

I'm an Opera user, but this is pathetic. If Steve says he saw that, there's no reason to believe that he didn't. Why should he cover for anyone?

Because he is a well known troll and nobody else has seen that.

I also saw rijk's post in Opera's forums where he stated that the whole thing was just a draft.

It´s obviously an internal draft since it´s not indexed anywhere and you have to go to the URL manually.

Anyway, the point still stands: where did Asa get http://opera.com/splash/google/ from?. That´s not the frontpage by any means.

"Nobody else has seen that" seems like a very bold claim. If the link appeared on Opera's front page, hundreds must have seen it. Nothing strange there.

It's the same as when I saw rijk posting in http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=119994 - it was gone in a few minutes, but I just happened to be visiting the thread (and refreshing) when his post was there. Am I also making things up? Maybe. Neither can be proven.

Innocent until proven guilty, remember?

If Opera says "no, we have never had it linked from our front page, not even for a second", then the question how Asa got the link may arise. But no sooner than that. Until then, we must all assume that Opera *did* have it linked, because Steve said so; whether you want to label him as a troll is your personal preference, but it says more about you than it does about him. I choose to believe his words, which is what everyone should do, as they seem plausible enough.

"Nobody else has seen that" seems like a very bold claim. If the link appeared on Opera's front page, hundreds must have seen it.

Whare are they then?.

Innocent until proven guilty, remember?

Exactly, schapel has to back up his claims.

If Opera says "no, we have never had it linked from our front page, not even for a second", then the question how Asa got the link may arise. But no sooner than that. Until then, we must all assume that Opera *did* have it linked, because Steve said so

This is not about who do you trust/believe or whatever, this is about facts.

whether you want to label him as a troll is your personal preference, but it says more about you than it does about him.

Do a search and you will find why he is a Troll.

Maybe Steve should explain how he could see something that wasn't there (and I did visit it last night).

Rick, "last night" is a long timeframe, especially considering that "last night" might mean "last morning" to a person in another part of the world.

Why don't you ask me - and another person I just found on Operawatch - how we could see rijk's post on Opera's forums? Maybe you were there as well five minutes before rijk posted, or 2 seconds after that post disappeared, and didn't see it; are you going to claim that it wasn't there? You have every right to do so.

And maybe you're right, maybe it wasn't there. I can't prove it, that person can't. For all I know, we might have been the only two people in the world who managed to see rijk mention that it was a draft and that the number was placed on the picture by an over-zealous Opera employee... But please, show some trust. There's no need to jump to conclusions. Let's wait and see what Opera has to say.

Wait Steve, so you have seen it on [b]www.opera.com[/b]??? But it's not where Asa found the page! First of all, he claimed that he found it in Google (but the page doesn't exist in Google, so either he is lying or Google deleted it from the search index). Second, he posted the [b]opera.com/splash/google[/b] address, not [b]www.opera.com[/b].

Your comments about Rijk's post is a red herring. Rijk's post is not what's in question here. What's in question here is how Asa found that page, and whether Steve is telling the truth or desperately trying to defend Asa from a lawsuit.

Ron Ron: please explain it to me, then.

"I just think that you should post comments relevant to the blog post instead of bashing firefox about it's huge memory leak -"

Heh, I guess I simply disagree: the comment was at least within the overarching subject of the blog. However, the statement "Perhaps you should spend more time doing, you know,... your job instead of posting bizarre blog entries for fanboys." was quite incendiary and uncalled for. So I get why you responded with such force.

"these kind of opinions are best emailed direct to the developers."

Having a "best method" does not mean that one should ignore inferior methods, especially when the "best method" doesn't appear to have mch of an effect.

Rick, Ray, you both sound insane.

The idea that there would be NDAs about pages openly on the internet is absurd.

Jakub81:"First of all, he claimed that he found it in Google"

You mean, when he said:

Asa:"Googlebot, I make it my business to know what's going on with the world of browsers."

You know he was responding to the poster named Googlebot, right?

"The idea that there would be NDAs about pages openly on the internet is absurd."

That's hardly the point, and I've already responded to this terrible excuse:

"I am sure Asa will use the argument that the URL is not password protected or anything like that to keep it private, but I'd like to pre-empt that excuse and point out that neither Opera's own site search nor Google have any knowledge of the URL. It must be very new, and not indexed by anything yet, so the only people who would know about it are the ones that are told by someone else that it exists. And only "insiders" in Opera or Google would have known."

Asa is clearly lying about where he found it.

Oh, I didn't notice it, sorry.

Anyway, Steve claims that he has seen the page on opera.com. And Asa posted another address (opera.com/splash/google), which is unknown to anyone. So whether he claimed that he found it google or in some other source, doesn't really matter.

Wow, this thread went downhill fast. You'd think this was a political blog in an election year, the amount of sheer devisiveness -- and derisiveness -- that's show up. Three guesses as to who benefits from all this. Of course, there are alternatives to fighting each other over trivia.

Update! Opera Watch is reporting that it was "a landing page for Google ads that some people at Opera have been working on" and that the download figure was "just an element that one of Opera's designers added to the page during the design process and then forgot to remove it." His source: Opera spokesman Eskil Sivertsen.

So the number was just made up for draft purposes -- kind of like "Cookies are delicious delicacies" -- and the page ended up visible before the final release.

But this still doesn't solve the mistery ;)

haavard has posted this in http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=119994 :

"Unless there was some kind of weird server glitch I don't know about, that page has never been on the front page of opera.com.

As for 100 million downloads, that was actually mentioned in a Business 2.0 interview with Jon in 2005."

Also, the 100 million number is true. It was reported in Business 2.0 last year.

The idea that there would be NDAs about pages openly on the internet is absurd.

It depends on how and when Asa got the information about the page. The problem is not that he posted the URL, the issue here is that he cannot explain where did he found it (it´s not indexed anywhere) which suggests that a "source" told him about some kind of colaboration between Google and Opera and pointed him to the page. That´s the problem with the NDA. Google wouldn´t be happy if some employee is talking about internal plans/roadmaps with one of his buddies at MoFo.

Asa is shooting himself in the foot.

So basically the conclusion to all this crap is that:

Asa has made a fool of himself again. Boy, when will you learn that you work for a corporation and these things are very unprofessional and amateurish.

Steve Schapel (schapel) is a Troll.

The guy who said that Rijk posted in the Opera forums was having some kind of nightmare.

Thumper woke up early.

Indeed, Asa still has some explaining to do.

rijk *did* post in the forum. It wasn't a nightmare. Unless, of course, olli hacked his forum account ;) I know what I saw, and the person at Operawatch saw it as well. Trust me (us?), it was rijk.

http://operawatch.blogspot.com/2006/01/opera-browser-reaches-100-million.html

Update 1/1/06 12:49 PM: Opera spokesman Eskil Sivertsen just sent me a reply saying that this page was just a landing page for Google ads that some people at Opera have been working on.

The number 100 million was just an element that one of Opera's designers added to the page during the design process and then forgot to remove it. "Some people were playing around with ideas and that page was never meant to be made available online", he wrote.

Opera has just updated the page and removed the reference to 100 million downloads.

"Come on!", when and where did the OperaWatch person say that he saw Rijk's post? It never existed. It was Olli, as someone explained.

And Asa, where are you? You've got some explaining to do.

Right here:

http://operawatch.blogspot.com/2006/01/opera-browser-reaches-100-million.html#c113733717539882876

"Anyway, it was Opera's rijk saying that the claim hadn't been verified and approved and was put in the screenshot by an over-zealous Opera employee."

That's exactly what I saw, except that I also saw rijk (it was rijk, dammit, I'm not losing my sanity!) say that the page was just a draft.

... or it was olli, as stated on Operawatch. Strange, though, as two persons thought it was rijk, and olli himself said he was mistaken for rijk before!

Maybe Olli wrote it from Rijk's account/computer.

I admit it- I flew to The Netherlands from Norway to post from Rijk's computer :-D

Why do some of you seem to instantly think that the worst possible explanation is the only one possible?

"That's hardly the point"

How so? It cuts to the heart of the severity of this "crime". Which is, apparently, that someone told him about the existence of a publicly available web page.

"Asa is clearly lying about where he found it."

There are other possibilities as to the source:
1. Someone that works for Opera.
2. Someone that that heard it from someone that works for Opera or Google. ...If Google is even really involved with the page.
3. Some fanatic Opera fan poking around the directory structure.

"Google wouldn´t be happy if some employee is talking about internal plans/roadmaps with one of his buddies at MoFo."

Internal plans/roadmaps are a far cry from pointing to a publicly available web page.

"Google wouldn´t be happy if some employee is talking about internal plans/roadmaps with one of his buddies at MoFo."

Internal plans/roadmaps are a far cry from pointing to a publicly available web page.

Why you misquote?. The problem is not the page, gee.

"It depends on how and when Asa got the information about the page. The problem is not that he posted the URL, the issue here is that he cannot explain where did he found it (it´s not indexed anywhere) which suggests that a "source" told him about some kind of colaboration between Google and Opera and pointed him to the page. That´s the problem with the NDA."

100 million or not, it still blows Firefox away in terms of speed, functionality and configurability, and nothing is going to change that.

Um, guys? There's no conspiracy here. I didn't "find" the address. The address was public. Opera was running Google AdWords *alongside Firefox search results*. When you searched for Firefox, an ad for Opera appeared and linked through to this page.

Why do some of you seem to instantly think that the worst possible explanation is the only one possible?

Because that´s the only explanation that is not unbelievable like some of the ones you posted?:

1. Someone that works for Opera.

Given Asa´s reputation and bashing history, it´s hard to believe that he has friends/whatever at Opera.

And why would an Opera employee send to Asa a link to an internal draft?. Oh, yeah, to give Asa some material to write yet another Opera post so he can make a fool of himself.

2. Someone that that heard it from someone that works for Opera or Google. ...If Google is even really involved with the page.

This is exactly the point. I won´t repeat what others previously said about NDAs.

3. Some fanatic Opera fan poking around the directory structure.

Most likely, yes. Then he sent the link to Asa. This Opera Fan was probably Steve "I saw it when I went to Opera.com last night" Chapel.

As someone said above, this is one of the most hilarious blog entries/threads ever. Asa must be proud.

In fact, the ad is still up, although it seems Opera either disabled its "Firefox" keyword or Google deactivated the ad for that keyword because it wasn't receiving enough clickthroughs. You can still see the ad by searching for "fast browser" (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=fast+browser&btnG=Search) along the right-hand side. (Reload a few times if it doesn't appear.)

The employeees of Google, Ben and I will now line up to receive apologies from about three dozen of you.

.!##$

who i'm refering too.. you do the math!

In fact, the ad is still up, although it seems Opera either disabled its "Firefox" keyword or Google deactivated the ad for that keyword because it wasn't receiving enough clickthroughs. You can still see the ad by searching for "fast browser" (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=fast+browser&btnG=Search) along the right-hand side. (Reload a few times if it doesn't appear.)

So Asa is like our friend schapel, he see "things" that don´t even exist.

This guy is a showman. I wonder why is he wasting his potential working at Mozilla.corp.

errr, i'm an opera user and i see the ad as well. and i think asa has a right to criticize advertisements that appear next to his own products, although he could have done it more tactfully.

Frankly, this thread is embarrassing.

Asa, you should know better. It reflects on you and Mozilla Corporation poorly for you to be doing this. Can you see that? Just focus on your work and we'll all benefit from a better browser. We don't need debates that lead nowhere, but we do need professional behaviour.

Asa, quit trolling at your own blog. You read at Operawatch that Daniel Goldman suggested that you could have found the URL through Adsense, You thought this was a good excuse and you posted it. If this true, why on earth didn´t you explained in your response to Googlebot at 04:49 AM?.

It's unclear to me how people are disputing the fact that this ad is actually running. Folks, you can SEE IT at Google. Whatever you think of Asa, you can't fight your eyes.

So basically, Asa clicks his competitor's ads?

Interesting. Very interesting. This is not the first time someone clicks on his competitor's ads to keep the actual useful clickthroughs at a lower level.

So either we have a breach of NDA, or we a case of click fraud on Google.

This keeps getting better and better!

You don't need to click on a link to see where it points. For such a browser-based crowd, I'd have expected more people to know about "Copy Link Location". When you do that on the ad, you get:

http://www.google.com/pagead/iclk?sa=l&ai=B58RRycnKQ4zUI4qGoALDm5D0AdWo1Q-BrfSEApW1o94CwJoMEAUYBSgIOABIljlQ59mr7v3_____AaABq7K6_wOqAQQyR01MyAEBlQIZCkkK&num=5&adurl=http://www.opera.com/splash/google/

I wonder what the destination link is there?

I came here to see if something was posted about Firefox 1.5.1 and instead of that there´s a blog entry about a draft page at Opera.com???. WTF?.

Seriously, Asa don´t you have any other things to do?, It´s not like Firefox is perfect, you know. As someone said, a little more work on the memory leak problem would be appreciated.

Steve Chapel, is that you? You've already been caught once lying to defend Asa. I'm surprised that you are still trying to make up excuses here.

i see the ads for that opera page for the google search, fast browser.

comeon, take your tin foils off and see that there may not be no conspiracy//

Asa sees conspiracies everywhere. This thing is definitely shady. Why should we give him the benefit of the doubt, considering his checkered past?

This thread has officially jumped the shark. Just to make sure, I'll mention Nazis. According to widely-accepted corollaries to Godwin's Law, this thread has reached its conclusion.

Can people not interested in commenting about the topic in question kindly shut up? Asa is entitled to post whatever he wants on his blog. It's a blog. That's what they're for.

He posts about cats and space, too, but I don't see you all jumping into those entries with your stupid comments about what else he could be doing with his spare time. In case you didn't notice, it's the weekend.

This blog entry has the potential of being the most hilarious thread ever. Heck, even Thumper posted here...

You were right!!!

It´s like a movie: we have an employee who clicks on his competitor´s ads, a guy who sees ghost pages, memory leaks, plot twists, impersonators, another guy with nightmares, Thumper, and we even have nazis!!!

I wonder if Asa is going to make Part II...

My head just exploded. I can see that 50-years hence, Opera will be an official, state-recognized religion. Good show people.

Interesting to see that the reason was one I didn't think of.

Wow, this thread is pathetic... Grow up, you bunch of losers. It's Asa's blog, he can damn-well post whatever he feels like on it, that's the nature of it.

I agree that I would like some news on Firefox 1.5.1, or the memory leaking issues, but all this stupid conspiracy crap is ridiculous.

"So either we have a breach of NDA, or we a case of click fraud on Google."

@Rick: I'm pretty sure clicking once on a Google ad because you found it's message to be somehow interesting, competitor or not, does not constitute click fraud. You are just trying to be sensationalist - I suggest you apply for a job at the Boston Globe.

Anyway, keep up the interesting posts Asa, I enjoy reading your blog for the most part :-)... A bit of news on firefox development (not just market share figures) would be appreciated though. Let us know what's actually going on behind the scenes!

- Marli

God these type of posts get too much attention, waste of time really. I wasted half a second to get to the bottom of the page.. ;) okay continue with it.

Asa did u guys release Firefox 1.5.0.1 RC1? (what this all about?)
http://filehippo.com/download_firefox/

For Opera users and for firefox users with greasemonkey extension , install this script:
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/operaStuff/userjs/operafyasa.user.js
then came back to this page for seeing what the next thing is Asa will be targeting.
:D

100 comments?

Wild.

He posts about cats and space, too, but I don't see you all jumping into those entries with your stupid comments about what else he could be doing with his spare time. In case you didn't notice, it's the weekend.

Exactly. Asa spends his saturday nights clicking on Opera ads. If he enjoys it, good for him.

Thumper woke up early

No he didn't. Thumper always flames retards, and Asa's comments section just happens to be the world's most concentrated source of them in the world. There is nothing in the universe more worthy of contempt than posting anonymously on here.

You're all idiots. Especially Jakub81.

- Chris

"Thumper always flames retards, and Asa's comments section just happens to be the world's most concentrated source of them in the world."

How true. How very, very true indeed.

can you all just be thankful for having a choice and get along with everyone...please..
opera is ok, but the email was plain.
ff is better than opera and IE, the email is ok, but needs a little work.

thumper and all those other mozillazine retards like to cause trouble, especially when they get all the attention. who cares, they're nonexistant to me!

100,000,000 sounds reasonable. i'm sure steve jobs was skecticle when firefox reached 100,000,000. stats aren't something to fall back on if u ask me.

Wow, this thread is pathetic... Grow up, you bunch of losers. It's Asa's blog, he can damn-well post whatever he feels like on it, that's the nature of it.

I agree that I would like some news on Firefox 1.5.1, or the memory leaking issues, but all this stupid conspiracy crap is ridiculous.

"So either we have a breach of NDA, or we a case of click fraud on Google."

@Rick: I'm pretty sure clicking once on a Google ad because you found it's message to be somehow interesting, competitor or not, does not constitute click fraud. You are just trying to be sensationalist - I suggest you apply for a job at the Boston Globe.

Anyway, keep up the interesting posts Asa, I enjoy reading your blog for the most part :-)... A bit of news on firefox development (not just market share figures) would be appreciated though. Let us know what's actually going on behind the scenes!

- Marli

LOL! I must have a twin who shares the same thoughts.

Just what we need. Another flame-bait Opera thread. Fortunately, this one is at least entertaining. :-)

Today, I found an explanation (in german) in Opera's community website, how they calculated this in a very simple way and that they meant only the time, since Opera is free.
Thomas Dorfen writes in his blog that they removed that because "it had been fogotten while designing the google ad website".
URL: http://my.opera.com/Thomas0/blog/show.dml/113069

LOL Opera users are such a losers. 100M, oh sure. Maybe from herring? LOL

Opera's share is 1% IN USA. In scandinavia and some central/eastern europe countries Opera has share around 5-15%. In ukraine for example it's more popular than all Gecko browsers altogehter - http://www.ranking.com.ua/rank.php?stat=browPL

Klaus: I can only barely read German, but between what I can read and the Google translation, it looks to me like they've estimated 11.8 million downloads since it went free (based on typical daily downloads). This is not only more in line with global marketshare than the 100 million (which, as has long since been established, was a piece of filler that was accidentally left in when the page went live), it actually matches Firefox's conversion rate fairly closely. If Firefox has pulled ~100M downloads and is close to 10% globally, and Opera has pulled ~12M downloads and is close to 1% globally, that means each is retaining about the same percentage of the people who try it out.

... and now Asa makes yet another attempt to make a thread with a 100 million replies. ;-)

I am laughing my a** off at all this obsessive Opera-fanboy paranoia.

Opera owed me a laugh after I downloaded their browser twice (but have yet to install it).

I consider that debt repaid...as of now!

Asa probably hasn't commented recently because he's been arrested for click fraud on Google.

I'm not quite certain, but maybe they had a head start... or they were on the internet before firefox became "firefox" and public.

"Grow up, you bunch of losers. It's Asa's blog, he can damn-well post whatever he feels like on it, that's the nature of it."

And only those that don't criticize Asa should comment on his blog entries?

I don't hold Asa in a particularly high regard, but at least he in difference from you, don't whine about the crowd that do not sit with their heads halfway up his, well you know where.

Opera developers/users are desperate losers, this "100M" thing just showed nicely.

yo I don't if the numbers are really true, but hey opera and firefox are great browsers. So lets stop being so oppurtunistic and be happy that we don't use IE.