Firefox 3.0 Awarded Guinness Record for Most Software Downloads

Aaaaand ... done.

Firefox 3.0 is officially in the Guinness Book of World Records. The browser secured more than 8 million downloads on its June 17 release date - an accomplishment now known as the greatest number of software downloads in a 24-hour period.

"As the arbiter and recorder of the world's amazing facts, Guinness World Records is pleased to add Mozilla's achievement to our archives," Gareth Deaves, records manager for Guinness World Records, said in a statement. "Mobilizing over 8 million Internet users within 24 hours is an extremely impressive accomplishment and we would like to congratulate the Mozilla community for their hard work and dedication."

In the weeks leading up to the release of Firefox 3.0, Mozilla launched a campaign to secure the world record. Technically, there was no actual record for software downloads, but that didn't stop Mozilla. Initially, they wanted to best the 1.6 million downloads that Firefox 2.0 got, but ended up a total of 8,002,530.

The Firefox site was so inundated with users trying to download 3.0 on release day that Mozilla had to delay its release by two hours in order to handle the excess traffic.