What’s Up With FireFox?

So, here I sit. It’s 5pm and the official start of “world record download day” was supposed to start at 1pm.

I have tried to download Firefox for hours now. I have grabbed it twice, successfully. But there seems to be a glitch.

When I check the about screen, it still shows the same 2008052906 stamp on it that I had this morning before I downloaded the final release.

But that’s not all. When I begin the install process, the end-user license is showing a date of May 2008.

So I just gave up. I don’t understand why they would hype their attempt at a “download record” and then push the same code from the latest release candidate as the full version.

Who knows. Maybe things are just wonky. Here are two different screen shots I took moments ago. One is from Firefox 3 (the lastest release candidate as far as I know), and Internet Explorer 7.

Even the download page was still showing the release candidates.

So what’s a guy supposed to do? Is the final release (aka the version downloaded today) the same as the previous release candidate down to the build number and end-user license? If so, isn’t it rather ridiculous to hype it as a final release? As a programmer, I just don’t get it. I know they have had issues today with their website, but two different browsers should show the same available download, and that download should at the very least be the final release version they promised.

Update (5:55pm): Just after posting this, I noticed the screen changed (as well as the filesize of the download) so I grabbed it again. It seems I once again downloaded and installed the same version of Firefox I had this morning.

If they are going for a record number of downloads today, it seems they may make it simply by the number of us who want a final release instead of the latest release candidate.

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