Firefox 3 download day is June 17th, so if it’s June 17th in your time zone now should you download it? No! Ok, go ahead now if you can get in.

In what I can only describe as a monumental screw-up, the Mozilla foundation decided to start the “day” at 10am PDT (1pm EDT). So wait a few more hours folks. Then go to the world record site. If it still has a button to pledge (as opposed to one to download) then the event hasn’t started yet.

Update: Mozilla now says “Firefox 3 is currently only being offered as a full download from http://getfirefox.com/“. The event has now started, but you may find that the download site is overloaded.

Microsoft did it right in 1996 when they hosted a “midnight madness” event. The first 10,000 people that downloaded IE3 got a T-shirt (I still have mine). I’ve read in the forums that some people stayed up late for Firefox 3 download parties, only to be disappointed that the download links were not active. Or worse, that they got one of the release candidate versions of FF3 and their download doesn’t count towards the record.

I know… download parties, world records, it’s all pretty silly. But who said computers had to be all work and no play?

Ed Burnette has programmed everything from device drivers and compilers to video games and multi-user servers. He is currently writing enterprise software in a variety of languages including C, Ruby, Python, and Java. For disclosure of Ed's industry affiliations, click here.

Just out of curiosity, is this the one you downloaded from here? If so, I just tried it, and I got the 300k speeds you mentioned.

It's 11:20 PDT. That link doesn't work either. embarrassing!

EDIT: Benson, that's cheating, to edit a post above mine, to make it look like you were first!

Yep. Must have been a momentary glitch, then.

So I'll now try to wade through getfirefox.com, and compare md5sums... I'm certain it's the same, but I thought I had the final before, too.

Edit: OK, got by getfirefox.com... (It's a redirect to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/?from=getfirefox .) It says:

Firefox3
Free Download
2.0.0.14 for Windows
English (US) (7.8MB)


What in the world does that mean?

Edit: Qole beat me on this; also, I'm seeing the same thing at the top.
One does have to wonder what they were thinking, inviting all the world to decend upon a CGI script. Static, anyone?

Hmm, perhaps this is malicious? I just got through, and the top of the page has this:

Graffiti?

Still embarrassing.

Updated: This is the day that Firefox users (and those waiting for the new release to become Firefox users) have been waiting for - Firefox 3.0 final has hit the Mozilla public FTP server. The browser will be officially available for download here June 17 at 10am PDT. and is available for download [UPDATE: FTP links removed at the request of Mozilla.].

If you can’t wait for the official release, Softpedia have Firefox 3.0 available for download.

[UPDATE: As of 10:14PDT the Mozilla website is returning Http/1.1 Service Unavailable. GetFirefox is also down.]

This "download day" is a very good idea, it's got Firefox far more attention from the mainstream media than it ever normally receives, and mainstream coverage is crucial if Firefox is to stand a chance of taking over from Internet Explorer.

The problem is entirely in the execution: the failure to specify a time for the day to begin, the weirdness of picking 10am California time, and the inability of their website to cope with demand.

I'm sure they'll try to spin this as a positive thing ("We were so popular our site crashed!") but how many casual users will come back after failing to get through on the actual day?

The existing FF fans will eventually get FF3 of course, but this kind of event is supposed to win over new fans.

Wow, none of us realized that.

Where I am, it's already June 18th. This US-centric (??) coordination doesn't bode well for Firefox.. They should have planned it for GMT+00 June 17th so that the worldwide timing is correct.

What?

Hey, Mozilla. Let's make a deal. You get your act together, then you can request to have FTP links removed.

Here's Firefox 3 (en-US) for Windows, Mac and for Linux.

Interestingly, there are no warnings anymore anywhere on the FTP about your downloads not counting or anything...