Mozilla celebrates two billion Firefox add-on downloads

Mozilla expects to pass another major milestone soon

Mozilla is celebrating another significant milestone for its flagship Firefox browser – two billion downloaded add-ons.

In an announcement on its rockyourfirefox web site, the company thanked its developers and loyal users, and talked up the customisation features of the browser.

“[This] feat was made possible by the huge community of people like you who use Firefox add-ons as well as the thousands of developers who make the add-ons you use,” wrote Julie Shin Choi, a Mozilla marketing executive.

“Over the years, we remained dedicated to building features and products that make Firefox the world’s most customisable web browser for consumers and developers."

Mozilla passed the one billion mark in November 2008 and at that time predicted that it would take around three years to double that number. However, it beat that estimate with ease, and Choi predicted that another major milestone would be reached soon.

“With your help, we’ve gotten to two billion in half that time,” she said. “With more than 150 million add-ons in use every day, we know that the next billion add-on downloads will be here before we know it."

To mark the achievement, Mozilla has created a collection of some of the best available add-ons.

It wasn't all good news for Mozilla this week, however, with Firefox losing market share to arch rival Internet Explorer in June according to the latest stats released by Net Applications.