As Firefox turns 20, Mozilla ponders how to restore it to its former glory
Exactly 20 years ago, Mozilla started shipping version 1.0 of its Firefox browser. At the time, you could download it or buy a CD-ROM with a guidebook
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Exactly 20 years ago, Mozilla started shipping version 1.0 of its Firefox browser. At the time, you could download it or buy a CD-ROM with a guidebook from Mozilla (or maybe get it on one of those free CDs that would come with many magazines at the time). Born out of the ashes of Netscape, Firefox would go on to gain well over 30% of global market share. But that was followed by a period of stagnation, and after the arrival of the faster and lighter Google Chrome, Firefox slowly but surely lost market share. It didn’t help that Mozilla, at the time, seemingly prioritized everything but its browser, all while its mobile browser initiatives never quite took off.
Despite everything, Firefox is still going strong, and it is a better browser today than it ever was. Now, Mozilla, which recently said that it wants to refocus on the browser, needs to figure out how to get it back on a growth path.
On the occasion of Firefox’s 20th birthday, I talked to Mozilla interim CEO Laura Chambers, who took over from Mitchell Baker earlier this year. Speaking from her home in Australia, Chambers told me at the time that one of the first things she did when she stepped into this role was to “unlock a bunch of money towards Firefox product development.”
“What I love about Firefox is that it really provides users with an alternative choice of a browser that is just genuinely designed for them,” she said. “We have, from its very inception and throughout, really wanted to create a browser that prioritizes people over profit, prioritizes privacy over anything else, and to have that option, the choice.”
Getting back to growth
“I’ve been in enough places where people tend to forget about the core business, and they stop investing in it, because they get distracted by shiny things — and then they regret it,” said Chambers, who previously held executive roles at PayPal, Skype, Airbnb, and Willow Innovations. “I’m very determined that that’s not what we’re going to do here. Firefox is incredibly important, and it is our core. We’ve actually put more investment into it this year and into connecting with our communities, into bringing out and testing features that are positive and creating good experiences for folks. That’s been a huge priority for me and for the company this year, and it’s showing up in the results.”
She acknowledged that Mozilla doesn’t have the device distribution that benefits many of Firefox’s competitors, especially on mobile, but she did note that the Digital Marks Act (DMA) in Europe — which means Apple, for example, has to provide a browser choice screen on iOS — is working.
“With the DMA, even though the implementation hasn’t been outstanding, we’re seeing a real shift. When people have the choice to choose Firefox, they’re choosing Firefox,” she said. “So on mobile, there’s some good, promising things happening there, because we know, once people get to choose Firefox, they choose us. Because the features are great, the product is great.”
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