Mozilla blows big Firefox 3 debut? Relax

(Credit: Mozilla)

I know things go bump in the night. That's the nature of the beast. Especially when your servers are spitting out 14,000 downloads per minute. So for the hair splitters out there turning purple over a temporary glitch at Mozilla's Web site, have a Coke and take a few minutes to inhale.

Shouldn't it have gone smoothly from the get-go? Natch. But there are worse things in life. The site was flakey for the better part of two hours (depending upon your time zone), but it's working now. Hey, if the engineering Einsteins over at Twitter had that kind of track record, investor Fred Wilson wouldn't have to pump the service so hard on his blog anymore.

I haven't had a chance to get my hands dirty with the new version of Firefox. It got a rave review from PC Magazine. Also, here's a video review from CNET's Seth Rosenblatt.

Meanwhile, News.com's Stephen Shankland has it right. This is a new front in the browser war:

As the Web transforms from a static repository of content into a foundation for applications such as word processors and graphics editors, browsers are growing up from mere gateways into the tool that makes those applications possible. In this new era, it's Firefox--the heir to the Netscape legacy--that's going up against the victor of the last era, Internet Explorer.

Microsoft's response is to wait until the end of the year. That's when IE 8 is slated to debut. Microsoft may get some buzz with the IE 8 beta 2, due in August. But it's never going to generate the sort of buzz the Mozilla folks are enjoying today. Glitch, or no glitch.

[smonoco]

i Still can't download it. :(

[mskenny]

I can't either. I'm sorry, but if you're going to make a big deal about getting a world download record, you ought to be prepared for a lot of traffic. It should flat out work, and it doesn't. This is a complete disaster.

[alphapolitan]

agreed!

[morlamweb]

"Complete disaster"? Come on. This is just a new browser release. Let's not overstate the issue.

[Penguinisto]

6.9 million downloads later (at this point in time), with 4 hours to go... not a disaster at all, really. See for yourself here: http://downloadcounter.sj.mozilla.com/

[Penguinisto]

6.9 million downloads later (at this point in time), with 4 hours to go... not a disaster at all, really. See for yourself here: http://downloadcounter.sj.mozilla.com/

[cobaltkooky]

Finally, finally, FINALLY got to the site, clicked on the link to download version 3, took me to the "downloadday" site and there it was in all it's shining glory - FIREFOX 2.0.0.14!!! I am so excited I just can't contain myself. Oh, wait, I came here for Firefox 3. The site is still messed up and pointing to the wrong version. Couple of hours you say? BS! It's been the whole day, or at least since they "flipped the switch". I don't know how they got those numbers to say almost 3 million downloads already, unless they were all 2.x.x.x like myself and others were sent to.

[og_gta]

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord

[bleu_tropix]

It's good to live in such a late timezone (Hawaii) I downloaded Firefox3 without a glitch around 11pm last night. Pretty awesome so far.

[strykernyc]

firefox 4 lif3 sweet :) we just installed firefox on 275 computers at work.

[erroljr]

Wow I have it and this is the best browser ever.I hate IE it's slow and old.This makes any computer looks like it has a shot of ram juice are something.I mean a old 32mb of ram computer would work fast like its a 1gb of ram with this if you have it.I mean it makes my 256mb seems like it 3gb ram plus all the extras it has as tabbing and a bunch of new looking interfaces.I would not get another browser EVER! no matter what anyone says and come out with.The best ever.So if you get it I guarantee you its the best and you would say the same.No browser can come near it forget it.Say goodbye to all others and hello mozilla.I commend you all for a job well done.And if someone says different and I have seen all and had all browsers you can thank of.And none will come close.And if you say this browser is not then you have not been on a computer are the net long.I challenge anyone to say it is not the best.Anyone.I will state this anytime and will say it and everyone else who gets this browser.If you don't get it then you are losing bigtime!!! I mean bigtime!! YOu want be disappointed ever.No glitches no problems nothing!!Thank you MOZZILLA FOR SAVING US!!

[ewelch]

Firefox is not the best. Period. I defy to you contradict me. Because no matter what you say, it's a matter of opinion. Firefox doesn't even come close to doing for me what my browser of choice does.

Which browser? Webkit. (Safari). I've tried every version of Firefox out there - including ones optimized for G5s. But they never were as good, or had the features I want.

I'll bet I've been on the web longer than you. I was on Genie, CompuServe and the Internet long, long ago. I've used every Windows browser since the very first ones. I used the first NetScape. I've used browsers on OS/2, BeOS, NeXTSTEP, Linux and Solaris.

Webkit is the future.

[tightlikethat]

Effortlessly downloaded 3.0 from my laptop while watching the Celtics celebrate the NBA Championship, but haven't been able to get back to the download page since from my desktop. So far everything runs faster than 2.0, and I'm looking forward to test-driving some new add-ons.

[richard mitnick]

I did three machines last night 6.17.08 with no problemo.

>>RSM

[Seaspray0]

You FF fans have been very very cruel to the download servers! Shame on you! <grin> Don't forget, I want to hear some honest reviews.

[The_Decider]

Is it really that hard to download it and try it out for yourself?

[Penguinisto]

Only found one glitch so far, with one site. The script at renderosity.com's forums tend to make the page jump upwards a bit when I reply to a thread and hit "enter" to perform a carriage return (Renderosity uses homemade forum software built in-house, which accounts for that). Otherwise everything works perfectly everywhere else I go, and on the one windows machine I use on my desk @ work, a side-by-side test shows that it beats the crap out of IE 7 in performance, rendering, and even memory management.

[Penguinisto]

Well - they said their goal was 5 million, they're at 6.9m, and doing roughly 6200 downloads a minute. (peeked at 7:16am PDT). Source: http://downloadcounter.sj.mozilla.com/ Also, Firefox 3's marketshare overall (against all browsers) is being meaured in semi-realtime by Hitslink, and shows a 4% marketshare... in less than 24 hours. Source: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=31

[bigmc6000]

Well they got me to download it - then they go me searching the web for the previous version. Stupid thing didn't work and it took me quite a while and an uninstall to get it working again (2.0.0.14). From what I could see the color scheme was very annoying. Just glad I'm back to my stable FF. It's going to be a LONG time until I try again since they can't even figure out how to make it work with dual monitors on a Quadro FX card...

[JDAlmand1951ga]

FF 3 looks great, but most of the online services I use do not recognize FF3 as a valid browser and i will have to let them know via there online comment section.

[iconoclast04]

If you had been following the Beta and RC releases the whole time, you wouldn't be rabid about downloading the final release on first day and wouldn't be complaining about overloaded servers....

[angel.d.saint]

here in the philippines, i downloaded the FF3 on D-Day w/out a problem. all add-ons didn't update as the FF3 was being installed, but when i opened it the first time, the rest followed. assuming of course, the add-ons were compatible.
there's really a significant increase in speed in my browsing experience. i'm using a P4 3.2GHz, 2GB RAM, XP SP3 PC.

[Starfires]

The perfection of the Firefox experience. I didn't notice such an improvement between 1 and 2 as I have now, but it is much faster and smoother. All the plug-ins I use updated pretty quickly and the 'native' appearence on OSX is a nice touch. Looking at how quickly it's spread this may be one of the fastest adoptions in history, spreading way beyond their original technophile base. So hats off to the Firfox team- they are getting pretty far towards setting a new standard (though I expect IE will still rule the roost for some time to come).