It appears that Mozilla did not quite realize how many Firefox nuts are out there (me included). They instigated for months for people to rally and download their latest browser, Firefox 3, today on launch day so that they could set a Guiness World Record for most downloads in a 24-hour timeframe.

Mozilla servers have been on and off trying to keep up with the apparently immense demand for the browser. Just now, the webpage at www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ is still dead half of the time. I'm very curious just how many users have actually downloaded the browser before tomorrow, but I'm guessing many more than 5 million, which was Mozilla's target.

So far, Firefox seems to be gaining more adepts every month, and even though Internet Explorer is still ahead, there’s no doubt about it that Firefox is willing to catch up as quickly as possible. And while they do that, making their 3.0 debut fun is probably what every campaign lacks.

However, many adepts were frustrated today with the server problems. I personally had no problem whatsoever downloading it, but later on access to the download webpage was on and off. Right now it works great, but by the time I finish this article it might be down again. However, there has been some improvement over earlier performance, it seems that Mozilla has summoned their and their ISP's admins to get things running smooth.

Overall, the website was more or less behaving like it was under a massive DOS attack. First thing tomorrow will be to check up on whether they managed to set the Guiness World Record, I'm guessing that at least 7 million downloads will be completed by that time. One has to remember that around 2 million pledged on the Firefox website to be part of the record-breaking launch and download the browser today.