Firefox Hits Finish Line Early

Mozilla has achieved its record-setting download goal for the new Firefox 3.

Nearly 7.3 million people have downloaded the software so far, with more than two hours still left on the clock. Mozilla had only hoped to hit five to seven million total within this first day.

The U.S. appears to have the most downloads thus far, with about 2.4 million as of noon Eastern time. The tally will keep climbing until 2:16 p.m. Eastern, when the 24 hours will have elapsed.

Engineers report they broke their old first day total for Firefox 2 — 1.6 million downloads — within the first five hours of version 3′s release. Looks like the Guinness Book of World Records has its new entry.