Firefox 3 Easily Exceeds Download Record

Once the Guinness Book of World Records authenticates the download activity, the Mozilla Foundation should see a figure in the range of 8.3 million downloads of the Firefox browser in a 24-hour period.

Firefox fans kept the servers busy at Mozilla during the organization’s Download Day. The day aimed to deliver a world record number of downloads to Firefox’s global fans.

Mozilla CEO John Lilly noted a few of the highlights of the day on his blog. Though they recorded over 8.3 million downloads, Lilly expects that number to decrease a little as they review counts over the next few weeks.

Their network witnessed impressive traffic numbers, once some early issues caused by heavy demand were resolved. “At the peak, we were serving 17,000 downloads a minute (283 per second!), and saw sustained download rates in excess of 4,000/minute,” Lilly said.

Once the dust cleared, Firefox ended up with a 4 percent global share of the browser market. World leader Internet Explorer, via a cake delivered to Mozilla, congratulated the group on shipping the latest version of Firefox.