As today is officially Firefox 3 Download Day, I eagerly went to the Get Firefox page expecting to add my triumphant download to the mass of other fans, and was disappointed to see that the site was down.
I've been checking throughout the day, and it's been on and off... Once, about at about 12:15 pm PST, the page displayed a download for Firefox 2, but no download for the new, full version of Firefox 3. Right now, 12:42 pm PST, I get this:
Http/1.1 Service Unavailable
Have any of you been able to download the new Firefox? I hope so.
Interestingly, there's also a bit of controversy on whether or not Mozilla's goal of 5 million downloads in one day (or 1.7 million depending who you ask) will even be enough to set a world record. Ben Forta wrote in a post on his blog that the Flash player averages over 5 million downloads every single day. Wow, I knew Flash was popular, but over 5 million download a day?!
Still, the Flash plug in is not really an optional download, as is choosing one web browser over another. I'm still rooting for Firefox and their Download Day. Hopefully we can all get in there grab Firefox 3.
Update:
At 2:35pm PST I was finally able to download Firefox 3 from the Spread Firefox site! Also, Orchard has created a useful widget, based on Kent Brewster's work that will show the number of FF3 downloads worldwide. I've included it here:
Also, I found an official blog post by Melissa Shapiro on the Mozilla blog talking about the site being crippled.
"The outpouring of interest and enthusiasm around Firefox 3 has been overwhelming (literally!). Our servers are currently feeling the burn and should be back to normal shortly. Download day will officially commence once the site goes live. The 24 hours period will be clocked from that moment. Thanks for your continued support."
