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world-record posts

Filed under: Internet, Mozilla, Browsers

United States loves Firefox 3, Turkmenistan, not so much

Turkmenistan 7
Mozilla's attempt to break a world record by getting as many people to download Firefox 3 in a 24 hour period as possible got off to a bumpy start. But almost a day later, the Mozilla servers are humming along and sending out copies of the company's latest browser to every corner of the globe. Wait, a globe is round. Nevermind.

Anyway, as of this morning, Firefox 3 had been downloaded over 6 million times, with more than 2 million downloads coming from the US. Mozilla has set up a nifty little page where you can track downloads by region. And all we can say is Turkmenistan had better step up its game. Seriously, 7 downloads? There have been more downloads from Greenland. We didn't even realize that people lived in Greenland.

Of course population size, poverty levels, and access to computers all come into play, which is why much of Africa is shaded in blue on the map (meaning most countries have had less than 1000 downloads) while more developed nations like the US, Canada, Spain, the UK, France, Germany, China, Russia, and India are colored in orange or red to show that 50,000 or more downloads have come from those locations.

The world record attempt concludes this afternoon at 11:16am Pacific, 2:16pm Eastern. Anyone want to take a stab at what the final number will be? Keep in mind, Mozilla's already secured a world record, since this is a new category for the Guinness Book of World Records.

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Filed under: Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Mozilla, Browser Tips

Download Day: The perils of shooting for a world record

Firefox down
So you may have heard that Mozilla is hoping to set a world record for the most software downloads in a single day today. The company has been hyping today as "Download Day" for about a week. But a more apt name might be "Down Day." That's because GetFirefox.com is down. As in dead, kaput, service unavailable.

This probably shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but if you encourage millions of users to download your software on the same day, your servers are going to take a hammering. But it appears that even Mozilla had no idea how many people would be trying to download Firefox 3 today.

There's a good chance that you may get through if you keep hitting refresh. And there's a good chance that the company will manage to break the world record if it ever gets the servers back up. But you know what? If you don't really care about setting a world record, Firefox 3 RC 3 is pretty much identical to Firefox 3 final. So if you're already running RC2 or RC3, there's no need to kill yourself trying to update your browser today. Tomorrow, next week, or even next month will probably be soon enough.

In the meantime, if you've got your heart set on downloading a next-generation browser, you can always take Opera 9.5 for a spin. That company's servers are holding up just fine.

Update: Some users are reporting success with these download links. Windows, Mac, Linux

Update 2: It looks like the site is back up, but incredibly slow. Like dialup slow.

Filed under: Internet, Mozilla

Mozilla sets release date for Firefox 3: June 17

Download Day
Mozilla is set to release the final version of Firefox 3 next Tuesday, June 17th. The next generation of Mozilla's web browser has been in development for almost three years, and after countless alphas, betas, and release candidates, we can't tell you how much we're looking forward to finally reporting on point releases.

The company has big plans for the day. Mozilla is hoping to set a world record for the most software downloads within a 24 hour period. The company is also encouraging people to plan Firefox parties around the globe. Very, very geeky Firefox downloading parties.

We'll let you in on a little secret though. If you don't care about setting world records, but just want to make sure you've got the most up to date version of the web browser, go ahead and download Firefox 3 RC 3 right now. It's pretty much the exact same browser you'll be able to download next week. But it's a lot harder to set a world record if you don't give people some warning, so Mozilla is delaying the official launch by a few days. That's a bit of a different tactic than Opera took when the company pushed out a release candidate of Opera 9.5 Monday and followed up with a final version of Opera 9.5 this morning.

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