Firefox 3 hits 19 million downloads

Firefox 3 is nearing 20 million downloads

Mozilla's Firefox 3 browser has reached roughly 19 million downloads in its first week of availability.

The company revealed on Tuesday morning that it had served up some 10 million downloads in the past six days. By Tuesday afternoon, the total had reached 19.6 million.

More than eight million copies of the browser were distributed in the first 24 hours.

Some 5.48 million downloads were recorded in the US, 1.7 million in Germany, one million in Japan and 807,900 in the UK.

Mozilla kicked off the Firefox 3 campaign with an effort to set a new Guinness World Record for the most downloads in a 24-hour period.

The event was almost too successful, as users nearly knocked out Mozilla's servers in the early hours of availability.

Mozilla is still waiting to hear from Guinness judges regarding verification of the record.

The Firefox 3 release may already be reaping an even larger reward for Mozilla. A spokesperson told vnunet.com that the browser's market share had climbed from 18.41 per cent in May to 19.17 per cent by the end of last week.

The spokesperson cited data from research firm Net Applications.