Thursday, June 19, 2008

Mozilla: Firefox Downloads Surpass 8 Million

Mozilla claimed a new download record for the release of Firefox 3.0 yesterday. It said that the newest version of the Firefox Web browser was downloaded more than 8 million times in the first 24 hours it was available.
Firefox devotees united in an attempt to set a world record for most software downloads in a single day. The category is new, and not yet certified by Guinness World Records, but it is expected to be approved this week.
The Tuesday release was delayed more than an hour as eager users checking for the new release overloaded Firefox's Web servers. To further complicate things, the site was slow or unreachable for about two hours just before the scheduled release time. Fortunately, the servers recovered and users were able to download nearly on schedule.
And download they did! During peak periods, servers were accommodating more than 9,000 downloads per minute. Within 24 hours, Firefox 3.0 was downloaded 8.3 million times, beating Mozilla’s prediction of 5 million downloads.
So what’s the big deal with this release? It includes enhancements to help users organize their favorite Web sites and block access to sites known to distribute malicious software. It also allows Yahoo mail users to use Firefox 3 to send e-mail by clicking a "mailto" link they might come across when clicking on a name, or a "contact us" link on a Web page. Before, these links could only open a standalone, desktop e-mail program. Firefox 3 also offers new design and speed improvements.

-- Michelle Savage

No comments: