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Attention Firefox fans:  Now is your chance to help set a Guinness World Record! We’ve already collected over 1.7 million pledges and served up several thousand Firefox 3 downloads.  Phenomenal — let’s see what the next 24 hours has in store!

To be part of the record please download Firefox 3 by 11:16 a.m. PDT (18:16 UTC) on June 18th.  Remember that Guinness is only counting complete downloads.   If you’re using an early version of Firefox 3, such as a beta or release candidate, you’ll need to download the new Firefox 3 to be counted.

Please help us document this history-making event with photos and videos.  Please tag images and videos with “Firefox 3,” “Download Fest,” “World Record,” and “Download Day.”

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.

We’re just over 12 hours until the start of the long-awaited Download Day!  Our Guinness World Record attempt will start when Firefox 3 is officially launched at approximately 10:00 a.m. PDT (17:00 UTC) on Tuesday, June 17th.

At that time, please check out the official Download Day site to download Firefox and for a map of worldwide downloads!

Did you miss the buzz about the Firefox Screencast Contest? Don’t worry! There are still plenty of chances to win some prizes, but there’s one catch: you have to submit your screencast before 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time today!

Participating only takes a few minutes, and doesn’t require any particular computer or Firefox skills — you just have to pick one of the top 100 knowledge base articles and follow the instructions while recording it with e.g. Jing.

1. Pick an article from the top 100 list
2. Create a screencast for the article
3. Submit your screencast

If you’re one of the 100 winners, your screencast will be used in a Knowledge Base article read by thousands and thousands of Firefox users. Not only will you be rewarded with a prize, you will really make a difference to provide invaluable help for all those users.

Our Guinness World Record attempt for the most software downloads in 24 hours is just around the corner!  As soon as we roll out Firefox 3 on June 17th you’ll have until the same time on June 18th to download Firefox 3.  Don’t worry about forgetting — our friends at Mozilla Hispano and Felipe Gomes of Brazil have created countdown tickers for your blog or Firefox!  Felipe’s ticker add-on will also count down the 24 hours as soon as our attempt starts!

Please remember that we’re only counting complete downloads.  If you’re using an early version of Firefox 3, such as a beta or release candidate, you’ll need to download the new Firefox 3 to be counted.

Don’t forget that Guinness would like to see images and videos of our global Download Fests.  Please tag images and videos with “Firefox 3,” “Download Fest,” “World Record,” and “Download Day.”

Thanks for all of the hard work — we’re almost there!

Editor’s note: Mozilla announced Firefox 3 Release Candidate 2 on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 4:25 pm PST.  See Mike Beltzner’s comprehensive post on Mozilla Developer News, crossposted below.

Please note: This second Firefox 3 Release Candidate is a public preview release intended for developer testing and community feedback. It includes new features as well as dramatic improvements to performance, memory usage and speed. We recommend that you read the release notes and known issues before installing this release.

The second Firefox 3 Release Candidate is now available for download. Ongoing planning for Firefox 3 can be followed at the Firefox 3 Planning Center, as well as in mozilla.dev.planning and on irc.mozilla.org in #granparadiso.

You can find out more about the new Features of Firefox 3 in the “What’s New” section of the release notes.

Testers can download the second Firefox 3 Release Candidate builds for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux in over 45 different languages. Developers should also read the Firefox 3 for Developers article on the Mozilla Developer Center.

Note: Please do not link directly to the download site. Instead we strongly encourage you to link to this Firefox 3 Release Candidate announcement so that everyone will know what this milestone is, what they should expect, and who should be downloading to participate in testing at this stage of development.

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A huge thanks to everyone for pledging and helping spread the word!  We’ve exceeded 700,000 pledges to help set a Guinness World Record in less than a week!

Our dedicated community got to work quickly to support the effort from all corners of the globe.  Some highlights include:

• Over 16,000 people have joined the “Firefox World Record” Facebook group
• Abdul Azis of Indonesia created a Facebook application
• The team from Mozilla-Mexico created a “how-to” for registering a Firefox 3/Download Day party and is furiously spreading the word!
• Mattijs De Smedt of Belgium developed a Wordpress plugin
• Ehsan Akhgari took upon himself to track pledges vs. region populations

I could go on and on about all the great work everyone is doing!  Please post a comment if you’ve heard of any other cool things people are up too.  We’d like to continue highlighting all the hard work.

Keep it up!

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Mozilla’s wonderful, global community has a whole lot to celebrate, including the upcoming Firefox 3 launch and Download Day, our quest to set a Guinness World Record.  2008 also marks the 10-year anniversary of Mozilla!

If you want to get in on the action, go to Mozilla Party Central and register for an account to either host or attend a party.  The fun is already underway:

• Adam VanBerlo and team, just hosted our very first Firefox 3 party at the Traverse City FragFest in Michigan.
• The Mozillagumi, a community of Mozilla developers, localizers, testers and users just celebrated nine years of community support for Mozilla in Japan.

[Editor's note: Firefox-clad car and driver not included in party pack.]

Sign up now and let’s get this party started!  We can’t wait to see what you have in store!  Please comment if you plan to host a large one — we would love to help!

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The New York Times ad…Firefox Flicks…the Firefox crop circle…Operation Firefox…you name it!  The Firefox community is always up to some cool, collaborative way to declare their passion for Firefox.  What better way to do this than band together to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours?!

It’s a whole lot easier and safer than donning a beard of bees or underwater jump roping. All you have to do is download Firefox 3 when it goes live on Download Day — some time in June. In the meantime check out Download Day Headquarters and pledge to download Firefox 3.  We’ll let you know when Firefox 3 goes out the door, kicking off our 24-hour attempt.

Here are some other ways you can help in the run up to Download Day:

* Get the word out; tell your friends, your neighbors, your grandma, anyone and everyone to participate in Download Day.
* Host a party to download Firefox; you provide the people and we’ll provide the party favors.
* Put a Download Day badge on your blog, profile or website.

With your help the Firefox community can go down in history!  If you have any questions or ideas please drop us a line at worldrecord @ mozilla.com.

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This Friday, May 23, will be a special day for Mozilla as we’ll be hosting the very first Support Firefox Day*. You’ll get a chance to learn more about Mozilla, Firefox 3, and Firefox Support (SUMO) — and have your voice heard. We’ve got lots of things planned! In particular, we’ve lined up a prestigious group of Mozilla celebrities who will be taking YOUR questions and feedback about a variety of subjects. We’ll also have workshops where we’ll be focusing on user-to-user support, and some of the upcoming goodies in Firefox 3.

Here is the action-packed schedule:

• 8:00 AM PDT - 10:00: Support session #1
• 10:00 – 10:45: Workshop: Supporting Firefox 3 users with Live Chat. In this workshop, you’ll learn all you need to know about the cool user-to-user support solution on SUMO to start helping others. Host: Lucy Connor
• 11:00 - 11:30: Chat with Mike Connor, Developer Lead of Firefox 3. Mike will be taking your questions about the upcoming release of Firefox 3 and all its new features, including the all-new product help (yes, SUMO!)
• 11:30 - 12:30: Support Session #2
• 12:30 - 1:15: Workshop: Learn all about the new bookmark system in Firefox 3 (tags, smart location bar, keywords) to better help others. Host: Dietrich Ayala
• 1:30 – 2:00: Chat with Mike Beltzner, Phenomenologist & Usability Design Expert. This is your chance to get your questions about the Mozilla way of designing software answered straight from the source. You’ll learn, among other things, how user feedback and support continuously loops back into product.
• 2:00 - 3:00: Support Session #3
• 3:00 - 3:45: Workshop: Learn how to troubleshoot Firefox 3 like a pro. You’ll find out more about how Firefox works, and at the same time you’ll become an expert of user-to-user troubleshooting. Host: Matthew Middleton
• 4:00 - 4:30: Chat with John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla Corporation. John will be available to answer your questions about Mozilla, including how it was started, where it’s going, and any other things you can think of.
• 4:30 - 5:00: Chat with Asa Dotzler, Spokesmodel and Storyteller. Asa has been a part of Mozilla since the very early days and is the perfect person to ask your questions — any questions — about… anything!

Of course, the big highlight of the day will be the best new Firefox 3 feature of all: Firefox’s new user-based support system. All throughout the day, we’ll be showcasing the various aspects to the support system: from the collaboratively written knowledge base to the forums and chat-based support and inviting you to take part. We’ll be around all day in #sumo to answer questions and help you get started helping your fellow users and Firefox enthusiasts.

Hope to see you on Friday! If you’re coming, please let us know so we can better plan the events.

*) OK, we did host something similar that we called SUMO Day last month, but with the new name, we think this is a fresh start.

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