This month Microsoft and Mozilla released new versions of their Internet Explorer and Firefox internet browsers.Surprisingly, Firefox seems to be leading early on in the download race, and it’s been more of a hit with the critics.
“Within 24 hours of the official launch on Tuesday, there were over 2 million people using Firefox 2, and we were seeing a peak rate of more than 30 downloads per second from our website,” said Firefox developer Mike Beltzner in a post to his personal blog.By contrast, it took four days for Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) downloads to reach 3 million downloads, said Tony Chor, group program manager at Microsoft.

“In the first four days over 3 million of you have already downloaded the final release,” he said.The reason for Firefox’s apparent success is at this point unclear, but one explanation is that, since Firefox users tend to be more fanatical and technology savvy than those of IE, they’d be more likely to download the new browser on the day of its release.By contrast, most IE users will wait until the new version of the browser is sent over automatic updates, which is expected to occur in November.

IE v Firefox: the battle begins – BizTech – Technology – smh.com.au