How Mozilla screwed the pooch on Firefox, in my opinion

And, everybody knows they DID, but, per Wiki and others, it's fallen off the cliff. 

Let's start with the nice big graphic Wiki has from Stat Counter. It is only through 2020, so no Brave.

 

The biggie is the spike in Chrome, even more than the drop in Firefox. 

What about smartphones? Well, Android is counted separate from Chrome. As for smartphones vs. desktop and laptop computers? They got the majority of browser share in November 2016 and haven't looked back.

I first thought that was the problem, but, Firefox's sagging starting in 2011. That said, not anticipating a Google-based option to an iPhone didn't help.

Given how buggy, and how insecure, an Android phone is, something cheaper than an iPhone, possibly cheaper than an Android, and maybe "locked" like an iPhone with some narrow, specific apps could have taken off like hotcakes. I would have bought one when my last flip phone, or "dumbphone," crapped out and Sprint told me smartphones were all it had available.

A second graph has more food for thought:

As you can see on it, mobile passed both Firefox and IE in 2013.

Had Mozilla put out an APB by the end of 2014, it probably could have had something to market by 2016. Partner with Samsung or someone else that got into Android smartphones early. Maybe try to resurrect a Nokia from the semi-dead by getting it to reverse engineer an Android.

But, after that, it might have been too late. By the end of 2016, Firefox was at 15 percent (and IE dying at 10 percent).

But, nobody sounded the "all hands in deck" in 2014 or even 2015.

Instead, in early 2022, we get Mozilla trying to backdoor paid search on us if we use the nav bar for searching, until it got busted at that.

Mozilla might take consolation in having a steady 10 percent of users. Should it?

The browser is a bigger memory whore than Chrome or Safari. (Never used Edge. Haven't used IE for 15 years. Opera is not as much a whore either. Haven't used Brave; downloaded but didn't install after its early kerfuffles.)

From what I've heard from friends (I haven't used it in years) recent iterations of Mozilla's email client, Thunderbird, are even more craptacular.

All of this should make you wonder how much of a player the Mozilla Foundation will be in the future world of the internet in general.