Firefox 3.0 recorded usage share of web browsers. Estimates of Firefox 3.0's global market share were generally in the range of 4–5%, and then dropped as users migrated to Firefox 3.5 and later Firefox 3.6. Partially as a result of this, between mid-December 2009 and the end of January 2010, Firefox 3.5 was the most popular browser (when counting individual browser versions), passing Internet Explorer 7. Mozilla ended support for Firefox 3 on March 30, 2010 with the release of 3.0.19. Firefox 3.0 was developed under the codename "Gran Paradiso". This, like other Firefox codenames, is the name of an actual place;
Firefox was created that loaded components of Firefox on startup, similar to Internet Explorer. A Windows Vista feature called SuperFetch performs a similar task of preloading Firefox if it is used often enough. Tests performed by "PC World" and Zimbra in 2006 indicated that Firefox 2 used less memory than Internet Explorer 7. Firefox 3 used less memory than Internet Explorer 7, Opera 9.50 Beta, Safari 3.1 Beta, and Firefox 2 in tests performed by Mozilla, CyberNet, and The Browser World. In mid-2009, BetaNews benchmarked Firefox 3.5 and declared that it performed "nearly ten times better on XP than Microsoft Internet