Mozilla's Firefox 3 Sets Guinness 'Download' Record

As expected, Mozilla’s Firefox 3 browser has secured a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most downloads in a single day. The open-source company said Wednesday that its browser set the world record by netting over 8 million downloads in its first 24 hours of release.

Launched on June 17, the day which the company dubbed “Download Day,” the open source Firefox 3 browser apparently benefited from a marketing campaign that Mozilla unveiled on May 28 to set the record.

The Mountain View, California-based company encouraged Firefox fans to pledge their support for Firefox at SpreadFirefox.com, and also asked them to place "Download Day" buttons on their Web sites as reminders of the big day.

"The enthusiasm and creativity of Firefox fans was instrumental in achieving this record," said Mozilla Vice President of Marketing Paul Kim while thanking Firefox enthusiasts in a statement.

"Our community members came together and not only spread the word, but also took the initiative to help mobilize millions of people to demonstrate their belief that Firefox gives people the best possible online experience," he continued.

Exactly 8,002,530 people downloaded Firefox 3 around the world downloaded Firefox 3 browser, the biggest rival to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, between 6pm June 17th to 6pm June 18th, with the biggest contributions coming from the US, Germany, Japan, Spain, the UK, France, Iran, Italy, Canada, and Poland.

The record breaking figure was officially confirmed after logs from download servers were audited and scrutinized to ensure only individual and complete downloads were counted.

"As the arbiter and recorder of the world's amazing facts, Guinness World Records is pleased to add Mozilla's achievement to our archives," said Guinness records manager Gareth Deaves in a statement. "Mobilizing over 8 million internet users within 24 hours is an extremely impressive accomplishment and we would like to congratulate the Mozilla community for their hard work and dedication."

Mozilla's latest version of the Firefox internet browser is the first to set the Guinness world record, as there was no previous official record for software downloads.

The next generation Firefox browser is available for free. Based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, Mozilla claims its new open-source software is more secure, more stable, speedier, and easier to use. The browser has more than 15,000 updates, including some major re-architecting for improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability.

The browser also has several ease of use enhancement, including one-click bookmarking and tag support in bookmarks, smart location bar, the ability to save and restore browser sessions, smart zoom that instead of just text enlarges all web page content and significantly improved protection against phishing attacks and malware. This malware and forgery protection feature warns users when they arrive at sites known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or the like.

Mozilla, which currently has some 18 per cent of the global browser market, hopes the groundbreaking opening of updated Firefox browser will likely strengthen its position in the surging browser market.

According to the most recent Net Applications survey, Firefox currently accounts for 18 percent of worldwide Web visits, followed by Safari with 6.2%. On the other hand, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer accounts for about 76% to 83% of Web site visits globally.