Opera Software claimed Thursday that the response to the release of its newest browser was so massive that it had to install new servers to handle the loads.

In the first 48 hours since its Tuesday release, Opera 8 was downloaded more than 600,000 times. By comparison, rival Firefox claimed 1,000,000 copies grabbed in the opening 24 hours after its 1.0 version went final in early November 2004.

"A lot of people had great difficulties downloading Opera 8 on Tuesday because the traffic on the servers was simply too high," said Carsten Fischer, a vice president with Opera Software, in a statement. "When download numbers reached 120 per second one hour after the release, our servers had serious problems dealing with all the requests. We had prepared for heavy traffic, but this exceeded our wildest dreams."

The Oslo-based browser builder has installed additional servers.

Opera 8 was released Tuesday in versions for Windows and Linux, and can be downloaded from the firm's Web site.