Firefox Download Day

Here is a fun thing that Firefox is trying to do: set the Guinness World Record for most downloads in a day, to promote their new browser. Wow, I have been using Firefox on FreeBSD since well before version 1.0 and it has served me well.

So, the question is, how do we FreeBSDers (and other non-Windows users) participate? I can't say for sure -- I looked over their FAQ and they didn't go into that much detail. However, I will assume that if I download the source code from a mozilla.org server during the "Download Day" that that will count.

How should we go about figuring out what to download? The make target 'fetch-list' is your friend here. The new Firefox is located at '/usr/ports/www/firefox-devel/' in the ports tree. If you go to that directory and run 'make fetch-list' it will output all locations that the ports system knows about to download the source code from. Just pick out the ones that are in the 'mozilla.org' domain, and you should be in business. It looks like this for me (with a little sed magic to make it more legible):

$ make fetch-list | sed 's/ || /\
> /g'
/usr/bin/env /usr/bin/fetch -ApRr -S 33867426 http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/granparadiso/alpha2/source//granparadiso-alpha2-source.tar.bz2
/usr/bin/env /usr/bin/fetch -ApRr -S 33867426 http://www.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/granparadiso/alpha2/source//granparadiso-alpha2-source.tar.bz2
/usr/bin/env /usr/bin/fetch -ApRr -S 33867426 http://mozilla.gnusoft.net/firefox/releases/granparadiso/alpha2/source//granparadiso-alpha2-source.tar.bz2
/usr/bin/env /usr/bin/fetch -ApRr -S 33867426 ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/granparadiso/alpha2/source//granparadiso-alpha2-source.tar.bz2
/usr/bin/env /usr/bin/fetch -ApRr -S 33867426 ftp://ftp.belnet.be/packages/mozilla/firefox/releases/granparadiso/alpha2/source//granparadiso-alpha2-source.tar.bz2
/usr/bin/env /usr/bin/fetch -ApRr -S 33867426 ftp://ftp.fh-wolfenbuettel.de/pub/www/mozilla/firefox/releases/granparadiso/alpha2/source//granparadiso-alpha2-source.tar.bz2
[snip]

Oh yeah, I need to update this ports tree bad! But, after that I should be getting a later code tarball in this output that should count. I may also manually ftp to their site and make double sure it's the latest for the new version. The ports tree could be lagging if they are releasing the code right before download day.

I sure hope this will count toward the record!

(Update: [Updated again] I checked the Mozilla ftp site and the release code for 3.0 can be fetched from here: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/3.0/source/firefox-3.0-source.tar.bz2 . ('http' should work too.) Be sure to leave this tarball in your '/usr/ports/distfiles' directory so it will be there when the port is ready for it!)

Reports are that the official download day begins at 1000 PST today (June 17th, 2008). That's confusing, since I'm in the states and on daylight savings time right now. (I hate daylight savings time.) So, didn't they mean PDT? Argh. So, it starts at either 1700 UTC or 1600 UTC (or, let's be honest, it may be 1800 UTC, because humans and time zone conversions are not compatible).

Another Update! I don't believe grabbing the RC source is sufficient. After rereading the DLD FAQ, I see that it says that Download day (DLD) starts with "the general availability of Firefox 3". So, I'll check for the release source tarball later. (Wasn't there this morning. (Was now and I've updated the ftp link above.)) ... Also, the 1700 UTC DLD launch has been missed. (ended up being 1816 UTC, as per Twitter.) See this post on the Mozilla blog. ... If the RC download page is any guide, linux users may be able to download an official binary. ... Finally, this Twitter page may be useful for up-to-the-minute information.

Really, really last update: The official DLD page confirms it -- you have until 1816 UTC today (June 18th) to complete your qualifying download. A commenter has pointed out that only downloads via the Mozilla web site will be counted.