Firefox 3, the recently released open source browser from Mozilla, has claimed that over 8 million copies of the software were downloaded on Download Day. The company stated early that their goal was to surpass the initial release of Firefox 2, at 1.6 million downloads in 24 hours, and hit 5 million downloads. The goal of the marketing campaign is to set a Guinness World Record for most downloaded software in a single day. A few days have passed and, barring the server downtime that plagued users for a few hours, the results look promising for Mozilla’s world record attempt. According to the official Mozilla blog, Firefox 3 easily cruised past 5 million user downloads. “We exceeded 8 million downloads in our 24 hour period,” the blog states. Downloads were tracked from 11:16am PDT on June 17th to 11:16am PDT on the following day.

The next step in the process is for Firefox 3 to be certified by Guinness World Records. To help get their audit logs in order, Mozilla has brought on two external judges: Paul Vixie, of the Internet Systems Consortium, and Corey Shields, of the University of Indiana’s University of Information Technology Services. Once the two judges and Mozilla feel confident that their download logs are in order, they will be handed over to the people at Guinness World Records for verification. If the attempt is verified, Firefox 3 will be the first recipient of the most software downloaded in a single day record. The process of having a record certified by Guinness can take two different paths. If Mozilla chooses not to expedite the service, the results will be released in four to six weeks. On the other hand, if the company opts for Fast Review, the results could be available in three days from the time the logs are submitted.

Mozilla has set June 17 as the official release day for Firefox 3. The introduction of the new browser marks the beginning of a race for the title of the fastest browser on the market. With more than one million people already pledged to download Firefox 3 on the first day of its release, Firefox 3 could set a Guinness World Record as the most downloaded software with the first 24 hours of launch. Mozilla has set next Tuesday, June 17, as the official release day for the upgraded Firefox 3 browser, following months of beta testing and release candidates that have been publicly available to users over the past few weeks. Firefox 3 will be shipped for both Mac and Windows on the same day.

Firefox 3 has already won critical acclaim for its reliability and noticeable performance improvements. It Besides code optimization, Firefox 3 brings numerous new features, including one-click bookmarking and tag support in bookmarks, smart location bar, the ability to save and restore browser sessions, smart zoom that enlarges all web page content (not just text) and significantly improved protection against phishing attacks and malware. Mozilla claims that Firefox 3 has 15,000 tweaks and enhancements when compared to Firefox 2. The official release of Firefox appears to be also launching the beginning the battle for the fastest browser on the market. The JavaScript engine seems to be the primary battlefield for now, as the scripting interpreter optimization directly translates to user-visible speed gains in Web 2.0 sites and Web applications that run faster and show more a responsive user interface.