Yes, June 17, 2008 was the big day. The folks at Mozilla haven’t left a single stone unturned in their effort to get the word across that they were hoping to set an all new kind of World Record, for the most number of downloads for a software in one day; and they were hoping to achieve that with the spanking new version of their incredibly popular browser, Mozilla Firefox 3. So,with more than half the time having elapsed already, here’s the scoop on all that’s gone on in this 24 hours.
Things certainly didn’t start out as planned. For more than two hours, the official download site, Getfirefox.com, was flooded with download requests from thousands of enthusiastic visitors from all around the world. Predictably, it couldn’t handle this sudden influx, and crashed. Frantic efforts by the Operations team at Mozilla to up the capacity started showing results, and the site was up and running again. All was not smooth though. Downloads were really slow, and on the first attempt, the download process completely froze at 46%. Thankfully, it did do the job on the subsequent attempt.
Fortunately, there have been no further hiccups as of now and Firefox 3 has already eclipsed the record set by Firefox 2, with 8 million downloads. A spokesperson at the Guinness World Records revealed that the entire review process, including the time taken for their team to assess all the evidence might take between 4-6 weeks. He also mentioned that the would-be world record setters could opt for the FastReview feature, which would provide results in about 3 days. So,we’ll have to wait and keep our ears and eyes open.
As of now, the United States is in the forefront, accounting for 2 million downloads. The total number stands at the 8,00,000+ mark at last update. As for me, I’ve done my part; Mozilla 3 has taken the pride of place in my desktop. What are you waiting for?
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