It was the marketing ploy to end all marketing ploys… well, maybe not, but it was a damn good idea drummed up by Mozilla to encourage internet users to download their latest version of Firefox. Creating a website specifically for the record, Mozilla announced they were going to attempt to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in a 24-hour period. This meant that Firefox fans worldwide would be sure to attempt a download during the launch day and secure Firefox 3’s position in the browser wars as a strong competitor against rival browsers such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari.
In a pretty foxy piece of marketing, it looks like Mozilla’s idea worked – since the launch at 10am PDT (6pm GMT) yesterday, the number of Firefox 3 downloads rests comfortably at 5,600,000 downloads – a whopping four million more than Firefox 2 received on its launch. This impressive achievement, which can leap upwards by thousands when you refresh the page, will continue to grow until the 24 hour limit is up and, Guinness World Record aside, means a fantastic launch day for Firefox 3.
And all of this is despite a messy server blockage when downloads first began. Download sites were rammed by eager Firefoxers all determined to be one of the first to experience the latest version of their favourite browser. Instead, most of them received a 503 message which turned into something of a disaster as, if files were accessed, there were problems with what was downloaded. On top of that, much criticism about the new feature, the “AwesomeBar”, is pouring onto blogs alongside advice of how to disable it. That said, not everybody hates it and some people who didn’t like it at first learned to change their minds and to at least cope with its existence – kinda like Windows Vista.
It’ll be interesting to see how the reception of Firefox 3 grows as more users experience its 15,000 improvements (say Mozilla). We’ll probably hear about them very soon – during the time taken to write this post, the total downloads on the Firefox 3 Download Day site has climbed another 100,000.
Go Firefox.
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