The gold bits of Firefox 3.0 went live on June 17, 2008, over half a year past the initially planned launch which was targeted for the end of 2007. At just a few days short of the first two months on the market for the successor of Firefox 2.0, users of Mozilla's open source browser now have access not only to the download version of Firefox 3.0, but also to the CD. Via Mozilla's store, Firefox 3.0 CDs go for $4.20 a pop in the U.S. and £3.00 per item for additional international markets.

"With more than 15,000 improvements, Firefox 3 is faster, safer and smarter than ever before," reads a fragment from the description of the browser. "Dozens of new features including the "awesome" bar, one-click bookmarking, full zoom, advanced tabbed browsing and blindingly fast performance. Instant Web Site ID and other security features keep you safe from scammers and spammers. Over 5000 add-ons let you customize your web experience to your personal needs."

In terms of downloads Firefox 3.0 has raised the bar extremely high for its rival browser developers, but especially for Microsoft. Having passed the 8 million downloads milestone in the first 24 hours since general availability, Firefox 3.0 has literally put the ball in the Redmond court. Internet Explorer 8, planned for release by the end of 2008, with the second Beta scheduled to drop later this month, will have to at least prove a match for Firefox 3.0 in order to curb the erosion of the IE market share by Mozilla's open source browser.

It is a tradition for open source projects, and even for Microsoft, to provide software solutions on various media from CDs to DVDs in addition to making the products available for download. The Redmond giant does it with Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3 for example, Canonical does it with their Ubuntu distribution of the open source Linux operating system, and Mozilla does it with Firefox. In the Mozilla international store, customers will even be able to acquire the Firefox 2.0 CD, with the mention that security and stability updates for the precursor of Firefox 3.0 are planned to be discontinued come mid-December 2008.

Firefox 3.0 is available for download here.
Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 can be grabbed via this link.