Firefox 3 Download Day Recap

Did Mozilla make it to the Guiness? We have yet to find out! We, along with the people at Mozilla are still awaiting final reports in their attempt to enter the Book of Guiness World Records for most number of software download in 24 hours. While there is currently no record to beat for that area, Mozilla hopes to be the first.

As it is, they already beat their own record for most downloads on first day release of their software from 1.6 million downloads of Firefox 2 in October 2006 to over 7 million downloads of Firefox 3 in June 2008. In the United States alone, Firefox 3 was downloaded 2.6 million times, with our download and our friends’ included! Germany had over 600,000 and Japan had over 400, 000 downloads.

What was disappointing was the downtime the website had experienced some parts of the day. At noontime, we couldn’t connect at all! We thought we couldn’t download the product because the server was just offline. Mozilla promoted this event big time, we hoped they could have been more prepared for it and expect millions of traffic from all around the globe.

Now comes the software itself. Was it a huge upgrade difference from Firefox 2? We’re getting mixed reactions from friends. Some don’t like the huge back and forward buttons on the toolbar which we think is really user friendly- as you want it big and easy to find! We like the fact that it is already Google integrated but some of our add-ons and extra toolbar aren’t compatible with the new browser yet! We had to disable them for now because we like what we’re getting from the new Firefox 3 so far. As promised, it is faster and really just feels better and secure overall.

The other thing major that’s totally debatable depending on your preference is the address bar itself where you type in the web address. Mozilla calls it the “smart location bar” as it automatically completes addresses for you as you type, then dynamically ranks the results and acts as an inside-the-browser search tool to find previously visited pages. We think it’s really smart! However, others think it’s annoying as the toolbar automatically slide down and cover half the browser page at the same time you are typing and the tool suggests earlier visted sites. Perhaps Firefox already thought of the mix reception of the new toolbar so they have as an add-on the option to return to the Firefox 2 look and feel.

Some people likes change, some people don’t, and some really need time to adjust to changes. We haven’t encountered any bugs yet or crashes. We’re sticking to the toolbar and we’re really digging Firefox 3 overall.