Firefox 4 thumps IE9 in first day download contest

Users downloaded nearly 7 million copies of the new Firefox 4 in the 24 hours since its launch yesterday, Mozilla's running tally claimed.

That number was almost triple the 2.4 million copies of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) that Microsoft claimed were downloaded in its browser's first day of availability last week.

Mozilla officially launched Firefox 4 Tuesday at around 10:00 a.m. EDT, bagging an even million in the first three hours. According to Mozilla's real-time calculator, about 6.5 million copies of Firefox 4 had been downloaded by 10:00 a.m. Wednesday.

But while Firefox 4's first-day count trounced IE9's, it fell short of the record established by Firefox 3.0 in mid-2008 when that browser was downloaded more than 8 million times. Then, Mozilla had pushed for a Guinness World Record with a "Download Day" campaign that urged users to flood its servers with requests. Firefox's Guinness record still stands.

:story: Full story: Computerworld

I've downloaded both browsers. I use Mozilla regularly though. I also tried Opera 11, just configuring the Favorites that I imported from Mozilla is a huge pain.