Firefox 3 Scores 8

Mozilla claims more than 8 million Firefox 3 downloads on release day. I wasn't one of them.

But I tried to be. The first barrier was logistical. Mozilla's download site simply wouldn't load. Even an hour after the download was released, the download page failed to open or gave an HTTP 1.1 error.

While trying to download the Web browser, I wrote a different version of this post. The original post snarked: Will you get carpal tunnel syndrome trying to download Firefox 3? That repetitive clicking is a killer. Maybe you're getting a new computer instead, after throwing your PC against the wall in frustration.

Frustration was about the most anybody got during the early part of Mozilla's so-called Download Day and attempt to set a world record for software downloads. In the hour after launch, the Twittersphere was one giant "I can't download Firefox" tweet, there were so many people griping about Mozilla's delivery problems.

MindTouch CEO Aaron Roe Fulkerson tweeted what I would have: "Dude ... how can I help break the world record if FF3 isn't out to download?"

Eric Shepherd, Mozilla's developer documentation lead, tweeted about 1 p.m. EDT (release time): "Servers died almost immediately after launch ... the IT robots are working on it."

About 2 p.m. yesterday, I finally was able to start downloading Firefox 3, at a sluggish 11k/sec. I wrote, but never posted, that if Mozilla was going to try and set a record, it would be best to have enough server capacity. I envisioned some other records Mozilla might set instead:

• Number of tweets about a new product release (and not necessarily all good)
• Amount of time wasted trying to download new software application
• Number of hits ending in "can't open page" errors
• Number of users frustrated (and angry) by a software download

I would have posted the list and even added to it, but catastrophe struck. In the strangest of coincidences, my hard drive fatally crashed during the Firefox 3 download. Mmmm, maybe Internet Explorer 8 is my destiny, and I must accept it.

So, I didn't share the revelry or frustration of Download Day. But I will chide Mozilla for a botched Firefox 3 kick-off and say it's time to ask a different question—not how many downloads there were but how many there weren't because of early server problems.

As for my hard drive catastrophe, I blogged about it in two parts—one and two—over at Apple Watch. If you enjoy watching car wrecks, the posts should be morbidly sufficient reading.