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24 March 2011 - 12:30 AMT

Firefox 4 creates a storm, records 7.1 million downloads

With the launch of its new version of Firefox Web browser, Mozilla has literally created a storm.

The new Firefox 4, launched on Tuesday, March 22, recorded 14,012,191 downloads as on Thursday afternoon. Within 24 hours of its launch it had recorded over 7.1 million downloads.

Though the number lagged behind the record-breaking performance of Firefox 3, which was downloaded more than 8 million times in the first day after launch in 2008, this number is far above the 2.4 million downloads that Microsoft reported in the first 24 hours after the Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) was released.

Mozilla said this download is in addition to the more than 3 million people “who were already running the release candidate that became our final version.”

"Firefox 4 is blazingly fast, cleverly intuitive to use, and for the first time, will be delivered consistently across desktops and mobile devices when Firefox 4 for Android and Maemo lands in the next couple of weeks," it claimed.

Mozilla also said that beyond the obvious, Firefox 4 more profoundly starts the redefinition of the “browser” – from a piece of code traditionally used to simply view, and link to static information, to a trusted environment we live our online lives in, and which we rely on to securely engage with information, applications, friends, colleagues and so much more, CyberMedia News reports.