Future of Firefox

Article on the future of Firefox. Thoughts ? (excerpt) Personally, I trust and like Firefox.



Why Google's legal troubles could hasten Firefox's slide into irrelevance

Even Firefox's parent organization, Mozilla, show Firefox's numbers dwindling. Since March 2020, Firefox has lost over 50 million monthly active users (MAU), dropping from 206 million to 155 million as of July 2024.

In a word, ugh.

So, why has this slide happened? Well, it all started when Google rolled out Chrome. As Hiten Shah, CEO of Nira, a cloud security company, observed, Google fundamentally reinvented the browser. In 2008, Google started creating an entirely new operating system for a cloud-based open web with its extensions and applications.


To make that happen, Google "poached" top web browser developers from Firefox, such as Ian Hickson, Darin Fisher, Pam Greene, and Brian Ryner. Microsoft and the Mozilla Foundation were caught flat-footed, and neither have caught up.


I find it more than a little ironic that many people still pick Firefox as their web browser because they hate Google and Chrome. Mozilla, Firefox's parent organization, lives and dies by the money it gets from Google.


No Google: No Firefox. Seriously.

I was a diehard Firefox fan for years but admit it has become my secondary browser now and Vivaldi is my primary browser. I also have Chrome and Edge but they rarely get used. Those are pretty grim numbers you posted so the future doesn't look good although Mozilla's Thunderbird email program seems to be booming and keeping up with the times.

Why limit yourself to a single browser ?
I've been a diehard firefox user for years, before that, netscape navigator.
Currently, I have four browsers.
Firefox, Librewolf portable, Google Chrome Portable and Vivaldi Standalone.
Honestly, It really doesn't matter to me which way it goes. It is what it is.

I moved to Chrome years ago (prior to that, I used Firefox) as I liked that I could keep my bookmarks and history in my google account and access from any machine, both home and work, across Windows/Mac/Linux and on Android.

Chrome has worked well for me. When I need a secondary browser, or a browser without an ad blocker I use Microsoft Edge.

I've been a Firefox user since the Blake Ross days, and I still use it today.

That being said, Mozilla has made plenty of mistakes that don't have anything to do with Google, and some that came along with taking money from Google. Then there are some political things that, regardless of how you feel about the particular issue, are sure to annoy one half of your user base or another. Let's not forget that idiocy of slipping the Mr. Roboto add-on into folks' browsers unannounced; disabled, sure, but what were you folks thinking, seriously? And then there are the privacy issues with things such as Pocket.

And to paraphrase Paul Thorrott recently, maybe if your business model is being propped up by a competitor, you're not actually a business.

For all the windows browser hype, reality is chrome is still the king by a long way, and will remain so for as long as it is also the primary android browser (


Perhaps more significantly Edge is now number two and will continue to grow as new users come along who are not specifically loyal to any browser as it is built in.

Edge is a bit like English - whilst not used 1st language, it is the most spoken 2nd language in countries using the Roman alphabet (or similar).
See @pparks1 comments. I strongly suspect most people install their browser of choice, but keep Edge as a backup (of course there are the anti-MS diehards who will go through hoops and loops to remove it, but I seriously doubt the vast majority fall into this category).

In the end, Browser wars are over and Firefox, Mozilla etc. are also rans now, and they will slowly decline.

It will take something truly spectacular to get any significant market share in the future.

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Firefox is needed to support the illusion that there is no monopoly. That's why its development is funded.
It's not just 'Edge', it's 'Edge Chromium'.

I have been using Firefox since the v2 or was it v4 days..
I have loved the XUL extension system... but the scrapping of said system was Firefox's downfall... sadly..
Web-Extensions are just not as good and does not come with as much ability customize as before..


I just installed Google Chrome over the weekend to give it a go... not too bad I guess..
but I will try to use both and manually sync bookmarks and other data across both browsers.

i gave up with Firefox some time ago, even on Linux. some Linux distro's now dont have FF as the default browser anymore.
my first primary browser is Vivaldi my backup browser is Edge but i do have Edge severely curtailed.
Firefox has become to unwieldy and is now overblown with to much that most dont need or want.

best of luck, Steve.