Seems like the browser based war is gearing up with the recent release of Firefox 3 ^[1]. The Opera team has released stats ^[2] about downloads and usages of Opera 9.5. According to the stats Opera has released, Opera 9.5 has been downloaded 4.7 million times in the last five days and has more than 20 million desktop users with a additional 12 million people using their Mobile browser Opera Mini.

The point that caught our eyes was that more than 1/4 users of Opera have never used the browser before which is quite impressive, this though would not surprise many, since the browser Opera had released for mobile devices has been quite impressive.

Nevertheless here are some stats that Opera team has released in a summarized format;

• 4.7 million downloads in last 5 days.
• 20 million active desktop users.
• 12 million Opera mini users.
• Two-fold growth over users from last year.

As you can see that these are quite impressive numbers. The Opera team also put the above numbers into perspective;

• Nearly one-fourth of Opera users downloaded the new release within the first five days.
• Opera Mini has more than half as many users as Opera Desktop.
• More people use Opera Desktop each month than live in the state of New York (2006 population estimate).
• More people use Opera Mini each month than live in Greece (2002 population estimates). 

For those who are rooting for Firefox here are the numbers stats for Firefox 3 that was officially shipped today ^[3];

• ~4.1 million downloads in last 12 hours
• 652380 downloads per hour or 10873 downloads per minute
• Still more than 12 hours to go before a day can complete

Though many of you may feel that the numbers are due to the promotion Firefox did to spread the news ^[4] about Firefox 3, you must not forget that Opera too had the same platform to use and promote their own products.

Another interesting fact is that Firefox has always been a free product and has been in the market for only the past few years, whereas on the other hand Opera was not fully free in the earlier days and have had quite a lot of time to improvise on their product.

Nevertheless we will not take this debate further since this can be a unending discussion. We will though keep you informed on the Firefox stats in the coming few days as Firefox makes them available.