Firefox 4 was released on March 22, 2011 and it created a record of sorts by being downloaded more than a million times in a few hours. Over 7 million copies of Firefox 4 were downloaded in the first 24 hours. On the other hand, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 was downloaded 2.35 million times in the first 24 hours.

Mozilla has now released a new infographic which shows the amount of downloads that happened in the first 48 hours of launch and compares it with several different things including a trip to the moon.

For example, Firefox 4 was downloaded 15.85 million times in the first 48 hours. If each download were a mile, it would have been 33 round trips to the moon and back. It is also larger than the population of LOS Angeles which is the 12th largest city in the world.

There were 10,200 downloads made per minute at peak and 5,503 average downloads per minute. This mean that Firefox 4 was downloaded 91.7 times per second. This is definitely some cool stats. For the rest check the infographic embedded below.

Currently the Firefox 4 download count stands at over 25.6 million. You can view live stats for FF4 downloads at http://glow.mozilla.org/.

Update: Please note that the IE9 download numbers are only for Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows Server based PCs, whereas Firefox 4 numbers are for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Apple has released the iOS 4.3 Update for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users. The iOS 4.3 update will be applicable to iPhone 3 and iPhone 4, iPod Touch 3G and iPod Touch 4G and the iPad 1.

The OS was supposed to be released on March 11, but was released today itself. This follows the iTunes 10.2.1 update released earlier today by Apple.

You can download the iOS 4.3 update for your device by connecting your device to your PC and clicking on the “Check for Updates” button in iTunes.

For a list of changes in iOS 4.3 head over to our earlier post on what’s new in iOS 4.3.

Mozilla has put up the first release candidate of Firefox 4 as promised. Even though the promise was of the 12th beta being the last, the transition over the last few months has been fast-paced and it would be time for skeptics to shed off their doubts of whether Firefox will be able to deliver a version 7 by the end of 2011, as planned in the roadmap. A brand new decisive release system already tells us how Firefox is hellbent on reaching this goal.

A complete list of new features in this RC is outlined at this page. Out of these changes , the remarkable ones are design UI, organizing tabs, managing add-ons and better a syncing UI. Behind the scene changes include better HTML5 support and better WebM support.

It is expected that these changes will put Firefox back in the game and with the agile roadmap ahead; Firefox has a chance of getting back a number of power users it lost to Google Chrome and Opera. Benchmarks say, the new JavaScript rendering engine is 3.5x faster and watching HD WebM videos will be fun. Along with that, there are other ‘not so evident at first’ changes like, 3D capabilities and hardware acceleration (which Opera too got a few days ago). The crash protection on tabs allows Firefox to isolate the rouge tab caused by a crashing plugin. This prevents the complete browser from going down, in case of a tab-crash and saves our important work.

To download the Firefox 4 RC installer sized at 12.6 MB, go to this page and follow the link.

The download provided above was for the beta 12 of Firefox 4 and not the RC release as written on the download page at Mozilla. The RC release is not publicly out yet, but you can catch the untested version here (English version). Keep an eye on this page for updates on the RC release.

Although most of the actions are taking place in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narhwal, Ubuntu 10.04 is still a very important release. Being an Long Term Support (LTS) release, it is widely used by those who prefer stability to new features and on servers where stability is very critical.

Canonical is  committed  to supporting Ubuntu 10.04 till April 2013 on desktops and April 2015 on servers. So, in continuation of the support, they have made available a new maintenance release of Ubuntu 10.04. The new release – Ubuntu 10.04.2 – is the second maintenance release of Ubuntu 10.04.

Since this is a maintenance release, it does not come with any new features. However, it does include a number of security updates and bug fixes which affected the release earlier. One of the most critical bug fixed in this  maintenance  release  is are the installation bugs. The bug in the installation process which caused performance regression on ext4  file-systems  has been fixed in this maintenance release.

This is what Kate Stewart, Ubuntu Release Manager, wrote in the mailing list:

Numerous updates have been integrated, and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation. These include security updates and corrections for other high-impact bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

Along with Ubuntu, Kubuntu 10.04.2 and Xubuntu 10.04.2 has also been released. Ubuntu 10.04.2, Kubuntu 10.04.2 and Xubuntu 10.04.2 are available for download for both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms.

Download Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop

Download Ubuntu 10.04 Server

Download Kubuntu 10.04

Download Xubuntu 10.04

If you are already using Ubuntu 10.04, you do not need to download the ISO again. Instead, you can simply update your system as usual.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

You can view the change log of Ubuntu 10.04.2 here. The next maintenance  release of Ubuntu 10.04 is scheduled for July 2011.

Apple had recently put up a download counter on their website, which displayed the total number of iOS apps and games downloaded from the App Store. Since the last two days, it has been hovering around the 9.9 billion number, but today, at around 4 PM IST, it has finally touched 10 billion.

Yes, more than 10 billion apps have been download from the App Store since it was launched on July 10, 2008. That’s more than 10.8 million apps every day, about 125 apps every second.

According to a report by Asymco, about 60 apps have been downloaded on every iOS device on average. The App Store has completely revolutionized the way in which apps and games are distributed and has created many millionaires. It spawned many copies like the Android Market, Windows Marketplace, Blackberry App World etc.

Inspired by the success of the iPhone App Store, Apple even launched an App Store for Mac OS. It has also been trying to trademark the word “App Store” to stop competitors from using it.

Apple had also announced a contest in which it would give away a $10000 gift card to the person who downloaded the 10 billionth app. The name of the lucky winner will soon be revealed. Even MacPhun announced a $5000 gift card to the winner.

via Apple

iOS 4.2.1 is out for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. You can easily upgrade to the latest iOS version by using iTunes. However, if you are having trouble with downloading or upgrading your iDevice to the latest iOS software, you can download the iOS directly to your computer and use the restore method to install the new OS. Download links for iOS 4.2.1 are listed below.

If you have a jailbroken iPhone or jailbroken iPod Touch, you can safely upgrade to iOS 4.2.1 as a jailbreak for iOS 4.2/4.2.1 through RedSn0w is now available

iOS 4.2.1 for iPhone users

• Download iOS 4.2.1 for iPhone 4
• Download iOS 4.2.1 for iPhone 3GS
• Download iOS 4.2.1 for iPhone 3G

iOS 4.2.1 for iPad users

• Download iOS 4.2.1 for iPad

iOS 4.2.1 for iPod Touch users

• Download iOS 4.2.1 for iPod Touch 4th Generation
• Download iOS 4.2.1 for iPod Touch 3rd Generation
• Download iOS 4.2.1 for iPod Touch 2nd Generation

iOS 4.2.1 is not available for iPhone 2G and below and iPod Touch 1st generation. If you have an older iPhone you might want to convert the iPhone to an iPod Touch.

Airtel unveiled a new logo and signature tune yesterday which was liked by several people and also rebuked and joked about by people on Twitter and Facebook.

The new signature tune for Airtel has been composed by A.R. Rahman and is aimed at making it more youthful and dynamic. If you haven’t heard the signature tune yet, you can do so in the embedded video below.

If you are looking to download the Airtel signature tune to your desktop as a MP3 or use the Airtel tune as a ringtone on your mobile phone, you can download it from Zedge.net. The new Airtel signature tune can be downloaded for free from here.

So go ahead and enjoy the new Airtel signature tune if you liked it.

Evernote has released version 4 of the Windows desktop client of the popular multi-platform note-taking software. The new version is written from scratch and is 5 times faster than Evernote 3.5 and also uses half the memory it used.

Evernote 4 is a major change from Evernote 3.5 and was completely rewritten from ground up. It fixes some major problems with Evernote 3.5 which includes slower start times and large memory footprints among other things. Evernote 4 has also been redesigned and looks completely refreshing when you compare it to Evernote 3.5.

The new interface saves up on a lot of space with a new redesigned menu and a better interface. Creating new notes is also easier than it was with Evernote 3.5. Evernote 4 also supports multitouch gestures and keyboard shortcuts.

Evernote 4 also focuses on ease of use with note creation and editing and also adds Jump Lists support and geo-location capabilities for Windows 7.

For more information on this release and the download links for Evernote 4, visit the Evernote blog.

Angry Birds are really angry today and they have made their displeasure very apparent by taking down both Rovio’s and GetJar’s site. If you are having trouble downloading Angry Birds for Android here are some alternative links posted by Rovio on their Twitter site.

You can download the Angry Birds for Android game from here, here or here. If these goes down will try and add more mirrors.

Google’s highly popular mobile OS Android is going from strength to strength.   The sales of Android devices are growing with each passing month and so is its popularity. Now, in a move to make Android more open’ Google has added 18 new countries which can purchase paid apps from the Android market. Along with this, the search giant has added 20 countries whose developers can sell their applications using the Android Market.

With this move, Android users from more than 32 countries can download paid applications from the market. The additional 18 countries where Google has enabled paid application download support includes Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, and Taiwan.

The additional countries from where developers can sell their Android applications include Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland and Taiwan.

This move from Google will surely help increase the popularity of Android worldwide. Kudos to Google for this!