Browsersphere

If you haven’t already heard, Firefox 3.6 will be officially released today.  If you’re interested in what goes into a Firefox release, you can follow along live with the release of Firefox 3.6 over at Air Mozilla.  As I write this, several Mozilla employees are introducing themselves to those who are watching.  There appear to be two groups, one from Mountainview, California, and the other from Toronto, Canada, participating in the live video feed, at least at the time being.  Several minutes ago, Mike Beltzner, Mozilla’s Director of Firefox, appeared to announce that Firefox 3.6 will go live on the website around 8:25 to 8:40 Eastern time.  Given the current time, I’m guessing that’s PM.  That being said, firefox.com currently redirects to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/upgrade.html which officially points to the Firefox 3.6 download and reports that the new version has already been downloaded over 37,500 times.

Head on over to Air Mozilla to follow along with the release day proceedings.

Tags: Air Mozilla, Downloads, Firefox, Firefox 3.6, Mike Beltzner, Releases

Following a slight server hiccup, Firefox 3 was officially released today at 11:16 AM Pacific time.  That means “Download Day” has officially arrived.  You can track global downloads over at Spread Firefox.  At the time of writing, it appears that the United States, which is in the lead globally, is already nearing the half-million download mark just a couple hours after the official release.  Germany and Spain currently round out the top three countries downloading Firefox 3.

If you haven’t made your mark yet, regardless of where on the planet you might live, head on over to getfirefox.com and download Firefox 3.

Tags: Download Day, Downloads, Firefox, Firefox 3, Germany, Releases, Spain, United States

Amazingly enough, Twitter was available for long enough today to allow the mozillafirefox Twitter account to relay the fact that Mozilla is having some server troubles due to anticipation of the release of Firefox 3, which was set to become available at 10am Pacific time this morning:

The outpouring of interest and enthusiasm around Firefox 3 has been overwhelming (literally!).  Our servers are currently feeling the burn and should be back to normal shortly.  Download day will officially commence once the site goes live.  The 24 hours period will be clocked from that moment.  Thanks for your continued support.

The “Download Day” mentioned refers to the Firefox team’s attempt at setting a Guiness World Record for the most software downloads in a 24-hour period.  More information on the effort is available over at The Register.

I noticed that the server at GetFirefox.com was already having some issues a couple hours before the official, planned kick-off, so it sounds like things have only gotten worse since then.  Even if the Firefox team does manage to get their servers back online, one has to wonder whether the bandwidth will be such that the 24-hour period will accurately reflect the number of downloads that were intended by the browser’s broad user base.

I’ll likely be posting more on this later in the day, so stay tuned.

Tags: Bandwidth, Downloads, Firefox, Mozilla, Records, Releases, Servers, Statistics, Twitter