[3/22/2011] Firefox 4 was released today at 10:30 AM EST. Approximately 3 hours later it reached the landmark of 1 million downloads, a Mozilla represented tweeted.

This download rate equates to 5.5K downloads per minute, and incredibly it has sustained itself over the initial 12 hour period. At 3.9+M downloads at the 1/2 day mark it has pounced Microsoft’s IE9 volume of 2.4M downloads during its premiere.

According to Mozilla’s livecounter, Europe is outpacing North America by 46% in total downloads. Firefox 3.0 release saw a record volume of 8M downloads during its first 24 hours.

Firefox 4.0 offers several new features, including a minimalistic U.I., and a more powerful JavaScript engine. The browser also boasts an updated plug-in architecture called JetPack, a new tab manager known as Panorama and more comprehensive support for HTML5.

Our initial impression is the updated Interface amps Mozilla’s strat; Grade A on UX.

Stay tuned for an update on a potential new record pace.