by , 4:05 PM EDT, July 3rd, 2008

Mozilla announced on Wednesday that it set a new Guinness World Record with 8,002,530 downloads in the first 24 hours after the launch of Firefox 3 on June 17.

The record was facilitate by a pledge program in which 1.7 million people pledged to download and, in turn, notified 43 million more people.

"The enthusiasm and creativity of Firefox fans was instrumental in achieving this record,? said Paul Kim, VP of Marketing at Mozilla. "Our community members came together and not only spread the word, but also took the initiative to help mobilize millions of people to demonstrate their belief that Firefox gives people the best possible online experience."

For those still using Firefox 2.x, Mozilla announced on Wednesday that version 2.0.0.15 has been released which fixes 13 vulnerabilities, five of which are "critical."

Firefox 2.x will be maintained until mid-December 2008, Mozilla announced.