Firefox 2.0 was made available for download on October 25, 2006 on the heels of Internet Explorer 7. Almost two years later, Firefox 3.0 is preceding the launch of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 by over a month. Today, June 17, 2008 is Firefox 3.0 Download Day. Approximately 1,5 million people from around the world have pledged to grab the latest iteration of the open source browser from Mozilla, in an attempt to make Firefox 3.0 the most downloaded piece of software in the first 24 hours. When the Download Day Guinness World Record initiative was announced, Mozilla revealed that it was aiming for no less than 5 million downloads.

And now, is the right time to start holding your breath for Firefox 3.0 Final. "Download Day 2008 officially kicks off with the release of Firefox 3 from Mountain View, California, USA at 10:00:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT)," revealed Asa Dotzler, Mozilla's director of community development. That is "officially" approximately nine to ten hours away.

"Download day is 24 hours long so even if the time is off a bit, that shouldn't be a problem. Check the Mozilla website at the time listed above and if you see Firefox 3, then download it. If you don't see Firefox 3 yet, then we haven't released yet. Just wait an hour or two and check back. There's no need for everyone to make the download at the exact same minute," Dotzler added.

According to Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's User Experience Lead, Firefox 3.0 reached a rate of 30 downloads per second, cumulating a total of 2 million downloads in just the first 24 hours. That was up 500,000 users from Firefox 1.5 which went all the way to 1.5 million downloads in the first day, and up from the 1 million downloads in the first 24 hours of Firefox 1.0.

Update: Firefox 3.0 Final is available for download right here on Softpedia.