Mozilla: Eight million downloads for Firefox 3

Mozilla has said more than eight million copies of Firefox 3 were downloaded in its first 24 hours online.

Mozilla, which is behind the open-source web browser, was trying to set a download record for the software. The 24-hour period lasted from 11:16(PDT) Tuesday to the same time Wednesday, and Mozilla said it's waiting for the Guinness Book of World Records to review the results.

The download rate, which peaked at 14,000 per minute on Tuesday, was still going strong at more than 6,000 per minute Wednesday morning.

But will it make a difference in its popularity stakes? It's likely the majority of those who downloaded Firefox 3 at this stage will just use it to replace Firefox 2, not a competitor such as Microsoft's still-dominant Internet Explorer or Apple's third-place Safari.

There's also a big difference between downloading Firefox, installing it, using it and switching to it as the primary browser. One early sign shows at a minimum, though, that Firefox 3 usage is significant at more than four per cent share, according to Net Applications.

Original article: Firefox 3 downloads clear 8 million mark from CNET News.com