In its first week, 19.6 million people downloaded Firefox 3, with 8 million of the downloads occurring within the first 24 hours after it was released on June 17.

Firefox 3-a major update to Mozilla's popular and acclaimed free, open source Web browser-is the culmination of three years of efforts from thousands of developers, security experts, localization and support communities, and testers from around the globe.

Available in approximately 50 languages, Firefox 3 is two to three times faster than its predecessor and offers more than 15,000 improvements, including the revolutionary smart location bar, malware protection, and extensive under-the-hood work to improve the speed and performance of the browser.

"We're really proud of Firefox 3 and it just shows what a committed, energized global community can do when they work together," said John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla.