I’ve wanted to make this post for awhile and never got around to it, but a recent conversation reminded me about it. Below are the “top 10″ add-ons (extensions and themes) collected three different ways. (This table best viewed on my actual blog.)
| Total Downloads | Active Users | Facebook Favorites | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | FlashGot | Adblock Plus | Adblock Plus |
| 2 | NoScript | FlashGot | Greasemonkey |
| 3 | Noia 2.0 (eXtreme) | Download Statusbar | Download Statusbar |
| 4 | VideoDownloader | IE Tab | Web Developer |
| 5 | Forecastfox | Forecastfox | IE Tab |
| 6 | Adblock Plus | VideoDownloader | Firebug |
| 7 | Adblock | Noia 2.0 (eXtreme) | Tab Mix Plus |
| 8 | Fasterfox | Fasterfox | del.icio.us Bookmarks |
| 9 | IE Tab | Tab Mix Plus | StumbleUpon |
| 10 | Download Statusbar | PDF Download | FoxyTunes |
Total Downloads and Weekly Downloads are the methods currently used for the “Most Popular” searches on AMO, and represents the number of downloads of that add-on from addons.mozilla.org.
Active Users is based on the number of daily update pings, and is a better metric of the popularity of an add-on because it shows which are actually being used after downloading. This information is not yet available on AMO, but we’re working on it.
Facebook Favorites is the number of users that have added that add-on to their favorites/recommended list in Rock Your Firefox. This shows add-ons that are both in use and loved. It would be a better metric of both popularity and quality than the others if the data wasn’t skewed a bit in that people that use Rock Your Firefox tend to be more technically inclined. Once we bring the favorites system to AMO, this data will be more reliable.
6 comments
It’d be interested to see the numbers against hte update pings. Since I host my own add-ons It’d be nice to have something to compare to.
> [...] the number of daily update pings [...] shows which are actually being used after downloading.
But can you see if a addon is disabled? I have a few addons that I have just disabled because I didn’t like them for various reasons.
It would be great if a similar report could be made for Thunderbird addons.
I’d like to see similar lists that just include themes, rather than both extensions and themes. Can you tell the difference between a theme that’s being used and a theme that’s installed but not being used?
I’d also like to see a list of the top “gaining” addons – i.e. the addons which have gained the most users percentage in the last week/month
that way it could be easier to find some of those new addons which are more obscure but useful
@Mossop: I didn’t include numbers because I think when this is added to AMO, the authors will be able to choose whether to make this number public or not for their add-on.
@AndersH: Yes, update pings include whether the add-on is enabled or disabled; however, the counting script does not currently take that into consideration.
@Simon: I’ll look at providing a Thunderbird report.
@Jesse: I’ll look at providing a themes report, but afaik there’s no way to tell which is in use. They all show as enabled in the update pings.
(this post is more than a year old and new comments have been automatically disabled)