Firefox 4 Breaks 1 Million Download Threshold in Under Three Hours

Mozilla's (News - Alert) Firefox 4 was downloaded more than 1 million times within the first three hours of its release, and is well on its way to eclipsing the 2.4 million copies of Internet Explorer 9 that Microsoft (News - Alert) said were downloaded on day one of its launch, according to a company tweet.

"The Firefox 4 downloads are rolling in! We just reached 1 million downloads," a Mozilla represented tweeted around 1:30 p.m. EST. 

Users downloaded the latest iteration of Firefox between 5,000 and 6,000 times per minute during the first three hours following its release, according to Computer World. Mozilla employees apparently celebrated the browser's one millionth download by ringing cowbells and watching the company's Firefox mascot dance around the office.

Mozilla also posted a live download counter so that users and employees can follow the browser's adoption rate.

While it seems that Firefox 4 will better IE9's recent debut, the new browser most likely won't break the day one record held by Firefox 3.0, which was downloaded a whopping 8 million times in its first 24 hours.

For Web surfers, the latest version of Firefox offers a number of new features, including a minimalistic user interface, a more powerful JavaScript engine and bookmark syncing. The browser also boasts an updated plug-in architecture called JetPack, a new tab manager known as Panorama and more comprehensive support for HTML5.

Similar to Internet Explorer 9, which was released earlier this month, Firefox 4 comes loaded with a "do not track" feature that is designed to ensure Web surfing privacy. Mozilla execs told PC Magazine that the anti-tracking feature is a work in progress. The company said that it is considering giving users the option to select from different levels of the "do not track" function.

Click here to download the latest version of Firefox in any one of 70 different languages.

Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Janice McDuffee