14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla has tallied the number of Firefox 4 downloads in the first 24 hours it's been available and, while impressive, it's maybe a bit disappointing. Firefox 4 was downloaded 7.1 million times in the first day after launch, significantly more than either Firefox 3.6 or Firefox 3.5. However, it didn't manage to beat the current record holder, Firefox 3.0 which was downloaded 8.3 million times in the same period.
"Firefox 4 for desktop launched yesterday and we’re excited to report that within 24 hours of being announced it had been downloaded 7.1 million times," Gary Kovacs, Mozilla CEO, writes.
"This is in addition to the more than 3 million people who were already running the release candidate that became our final version. Firefox 4 is blazingly fast, cleverly intuitive to use, and for the first time, will be delivered consistently across desktops and mobile devices when Firefox 4 for Android and Maemo lands in the next couple of weeks," he adds.
Firefox got off to a good start, hitting one million downloads within the first couple of hours and the download rate held above 5,000 per minute sometimes hitting 8,000 downloads per minute for sustained periods.
It was not enough to topple the current record holder though, but it still makes it an impressive start for the latest and greatest Firefox. What's more interesting, Firefox 4 has already doubled the first day downloads, it stands at almost 14,5 million, before the end of the second day.
This indicates that the number of downloads is increasing. Indeed, when looking at the region data, North America is catching up to Europe which took a big lead in the first day. Of course, that may very well be because Europe is only now waking up.
There are close to six million downloads from Europe and only 4.5 million from North America. Asia follows with 2.5 million. The one week numbers should prove more interesting. For comparison, Firefox 3.6 was downloaded 17 million times in the first week, a number Firefox 4 is likely to beat in its first two days.