14 DAY TRIAL // The launch of Opera 11 yesterday proved to be the biggest yet for the small Norwegian company. The latest stable version clocked in 6.7 million downloads in the first day, a big improvement over the Opera 10.10 release. Of course, this was the first time automatic updates were enabled, but the company also promoted the launch better than previous ones.
"A little more than a year ago, we launched Opera 10.10. We were stunned to see an average of 1,7 million downloads per day the first week. In fact in our own words: 'this download rate shatters previous Opera records.'," Opera's Espen André Øverdahl writes.
"What a difference a year makes. Yesterday, Opera 11 was downloaded a total of 6.7 million times with 1,1 millions coming from download partners around the globe," he announced.
That's quite a feat for a browser with about 50 million users worldwide, at least according to Opera's own reports. There were plenty of first time users as well, but having about 10 percent of the user base update on the first day is quite an achievement. Opera speculates that "the bacon" had something to do with it.
These kind of numbers aren't that impressive when you consider that the majority of Chrome users - and there are 120 million of them now - are running the latest version within days of launch.
Google Chrome though has always had a fully automated update system. Opera has automatic updates as well, but that doesn't mean that it can push the new version to all users at once.
"50 million downloads all at once might, at worst, rip a hole in the fabric of space-time, sending our offices hurtling into a parallel universe where toasters fly and everyone uses MS Bob. Or it might just make the downloads really slow. Either way, we aren't taking chances," Opera says.
Google also pushes Chrome updates over a period of days and it's fair to say the giant web company has a bit more computing power than Opera.
The real interesting number would be, how many of these downloads are new users and how many are sticking around. But Opera is only saying that 53 percent of new users are coming from Firefox and about 43 percent from IE.