The number of downloads of Firefox has topped 25 million, indicating that the open-source browser continues to make gains in the market dominated by Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer.

Downloads of Firefox 1.0 had reached 25.24 million as of Friday, just over 100 days since its release, according to the Mozilla Foundation, developers of the browser. A preview release of Firefox 1.1 is scheduled for April.

Security concerns have been a major impetus for consumers to switch from IE to alternative browsers, with Firefox benefiting the most. As of January, IE's market share had fallen to 92.7 percent, while Firefox's share had risen to 4.8 percent, according to JupiterResearch, a division of Jupitermedia Corp. Other browsers, such as Netscape and Opera, accounted for the rest.

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