“Sharman Networks said its Kazaa file-sharing software was on track to set a record Friday as it becomes the most-popular free program on the Web with over 230 million downloads. By hitting that total, Shaman said Kazaa would surpass the popular ICQ instant messaging program, owned by CNN’s parent company AOL Time Warner… As of late Thursday, the Kazaa Media Desktop application — a file-sharing software that has drawn the wrath of the music industry by enabling its users to swap songs for free — had been downloaded 229,150,955 times, as measured by Download.com, which is owned by CNET Networks Inc,” reports Reuters here.
However, to MacDailyNews, 230 million downloads sounds small when you take a look at Apple’s QuickTime. We’re assuming that Kazaa Media Desktop has been through various versions and all of these various versions have been lumped together to reach the 230 million downloads figure Reuters mentions.
230 million is not enough downloads to set the download record, Kazaa. Looks like Kazaa forgot about a cross-platform behemoth that’s been around for a long, long time:
In a press release dated, October 10, 2000, “Apple today announced that more than 100 million copies of its QuickTime 4 software have been distributed to Mac and Windows users worldwide.”
In a November 28, 2001 press release, “Driven by the popularity of high-quality QuickTime content on popular web sites, one million copies of Apple’s QuickTime 5 are being downloaded every three days. The rate of QuickTime 5 downloads has steadily increased since its launch in April, putting QuickTime 5 on track to exceed 100 million downloads in its first year of distribution. ‘More than 300,000 people download QuickTime 5 to their Macs and PCs every day,’ said Philip Schiller, Apple?s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.”
“QuickTime 5 was downloaded over 100 million times by both Windows and Mac customers in its first year. Every day, more than 300,000 people download QuickTime…”
And, most recently, in a press release dated, October 15, 2002, “Apple today announced that more than 25 million copies of QuickTime 6 have been downloaded in less than 100 days… More than 126 million users downloaded the QuickTime Player via the Internet in the last year…”
If you think about it, do the math, and use a little bit of common sense, 230 million doesn’t sound like much now, does it?
Kind of funny considering that Macromedia says it’s Flash program is on 96% of all computers.
Kazaa = thieves and porn traders in a publicity play with numbers that cannot match QuickTime in order to distract from Apple’s legitimate and beautiful iTunes Music Store.
Flash is usually included on most new Macs and probably PCs. No need to download except for updates.
How about Acrobat?
Kazaa is Icelandic for “full of shit”
These are windoze ways of taking control, lies, lies, lies.
Macromedia’s site says that Flash is used on 516 million computers as of March 2003. It is free. It is downloadable. Of course, Kazaa embedded itself within millions of computers without asking permission. It is very akin to a virus in that way. I don’t think I’d be bragging about how many computers I’d infected.