Plugin directory: active installs number higher than all-time download count

[dmchale]

​https://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-json-api/advanced/

Stats claim 30,000+ active installs, but (at the time of this post) only 27,011 all-time downloads. Until recently the active installs number was at 20,000+ so I was surprised by the jump to the next level. Then I checked the download count and raised an eyebrow. Seems like some reporting has gotten "off" somewhere in the system?

[SergeyBiryukov]

People could download the plugin once and install it on multiple sites, I don't see anything wrong with that.

[dmchale]

I concede that's POSSIBLE. But in a close-to-best-case scenario with minimal dropoff/uninstall after download, let's say that 25,000 people still use the plugin after downloading from the repository. Does that mean over 5,000 sites have installed copies from elsewhere? That's a significant number, and percentage, of the total count. To me it seemed more likely that the math and/or reporting was "off" somehow.

In case it WAS a systems issue, I wanted to raise the flag just in case someone wanted to peek behind the curtain and ensure that everything was functioning properly.

[dingdang]

Hosting providers, support companies that have tens of thousands WP clients can easily download it once and install it on 100K sites w/o the need to download a plugin 100K times.

[Otto42]

I checked the numbers. Not faked. There was a very rapid growth spike in February, but nothing abnormal recently. False alarm.