Mozilla to Users: Come Slam our Network!

The Firefox evangelists at Mozilla have a novel goal:  they want to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. To get there, the open source browser builders declared a Download Day and are soliciting pledges to grab the browser on release day, which hasn't yet been announced.

Interesting idea, and I sure hope the marketing folks had a long talk with the network group before running with this one. It's normally sound practice to try and spread out major traffic so as to not overburden your network. Mozilla learned that lesson when it first implemented automatic updates in Firefox - it didn't stagger them out well enough and ended up slamming their network.

Here's hoping they're better prepared this time around (I strongly suspect they are). In any case, I'm eager to see the new browser launch, and even more eager to see my must-have add-ons (like Foxmarks) update for version 3. 

I'm still on Firefox 2 while I wait for those updates, but the more I think about the 'Awesome Bar' - which allows for typing search text in the location bar and finding matches from among your bookmarks as well as browsing history URLs and text - the more I want to make the switch.  Seems like it could be a real time saver, especially if you're trying to find some data at work and just can't recall where that bookmark or visited page went.

For more on Firefox 3 take a look at Ed Albro's "5 Things You'll Love about Firefox 3," or jump straight in and download the current release candidate from Mozilla.