Firefox 3 will finally be officially launched later today. After five beta tests and three release candidates more than 15,000 improvements have been made and firefox 3 is faster, safer and smarter than before. Over 1.5 million people have pledged to download the improved browser which will form part of a Mozilla World Record attempt for the most downloads within a 24-hour period. There is currently no existing record to break, however Mozilla are keen to smash through the number of Firefox 2 downloads.

This is the first record attempt of its kind so there is no set number. We’d really like to outdo the number of Firefox 2 downloads on its launch day, which was 1.6 million. Let’s shoot for 5 million–the sky is the limit!

Firefox 2 was heavily criticised as a memory hog, for having memory leaks. But over the months a lot of work on Firefox 3 has been completed, especially on the memory footprint, and it seems people are much happier.

We are signed up to the pledge, are you?