Mozilla Firefox was officially registered in the Guinness book of records as the most often downloaded software in a 24-hour period. The final result was 8,002,530 downloads of the Firefox 3.0 Internet browser. The results were registered in June.

"The enthusiasm and creativity of Firefox fans was key to making this happen," outlined the marketing director Paul Kim. The representative of Guinness World Records, Gareth Deaves, commented on the achievement of Firefox, calling it "an extremely impressive accomplishment." The official number was announced after the inspection of the logs from download servers, which ensured that duplicated and canceled downloads are not calculated.

"The notion of going for a world record, as... nutty as it may have sounded, was a really sticky idea. It was an idea that translated really well across national borders and to all different kinds of people around the world," said Mr. Kim.

According to the marketing head Mary Colvig, everyone was to celebrate the achievement only after the Guinness World Records would provide its certificate in London next week. "Here at Mozilla headquarters (in Mountain View) I think most of us are just going to try and get to bed early now that we have the confirmation. We are all tired."

The day that the browser was launched for download, the security firms announced that they have discovered certain flaws in the software. Five hours since the beginning of the download, DV Labs/Tipping Point stated that there was a flaw that could allow a hacker to take over a PC in case someone clicked on a booby-trapped link. "Firefox users are safe. We have a patch in the works and hope to release it very soon," commented Mr. Kim.

Besides previously mentioned flows, there was a potential danger that Mozilla experts had to face. The problem was that servers that handled the downloads went out of order due to a huge number of visitors willing to check if they could download the new version of the browser. After everything was ready for the launch, the clock started ticking. It is worth mentioning that at some point servers handled over 9,000 downloads per minute. In just five hours the new Firefox 3.0 was downloaded more than the record set by Firefox 2.0 back in October 2006, when the number of downloads reached 1.6 million.

Additional success for the new version came after it was announced that the browser increased its share on the market up to 19 percent, making Firefox the second most used browser after Internet Explorer. According to Net Applications, part of the browser's success comes from its main competitor. Statistics presented by the company showed that last month Microsoft's Internet Explorer registered a record low and it expected Firefox to go over the bar showing 20 percent in July.

"We offer the best browsing experience and this shows people are getting the message and voting with their browser choice," said Mr. Kim.

Currently Mozilla introduced its high priority update for its second version of the browser, saying that the browser might have at least five weak points that a hacker could take advantage of, performing code execution attacks. According to Mr. Kim the company looks forward to provide support to its Firefox 2.0 until the middle of December, when users will have to work with the new version. In two week Firefox 3.0 was downloaded over 28 millions of times.