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As Firefox turns 20, Mozilla ponders how to restore it to its former glory
Frederic Lardinois
6 min read
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.
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
Laura Chambers, CEO, Mozilla.Image Credits:Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images / Getty Images
"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."
To kick-start some of this growth, Mozilla is looking at reaching new, and younger, users. Chambers noted that Mozilla is running a number of marketing campaigns to make people aware of Firefox, especially those who are only now starting to make their first browser choices.
With them, she believes, Mozilla's messaging around privacy lands especially well. "Privacy is still resonating, right? It always does. Like, if you ask people if they care about privacy, they always say, yes. Now, do they take actions consistent with it? Not always, but the privacy messaging, people get that and appreciate it," she said.
Of course, she said, the browser also has to work very well — and that's something Mozilla has focused on quite extensively in recent years. And at the same time, the team also has to keep innovating and giving users the features they are looking for. She noted that as part of refocusing on Firefox, Mozilla is running far more user experience experiments in the browser now, for example.
Firefox AI
Mozilla is also thinking about how AI will change how people browse the web. There, the organization is mostly looking at giving people choice. It's starting to build some smaller models into the browser already, mostly around translation, but with Firefox 130, it also introduced a model that automatically adds alt text for PDF images, for example. For all of this work with AI models, Mozilla plans to follow the Open Source Initiative's guidance for what constitutes an open source model.
"I think the browser can play a really, really powerful role here — a browser that is designed for your choice and that is designed for your privacy could play a very key role, I think, in the future of Gen AI, especially in a world where there's models taking actions on your behalf," she said. "How do you have transparency into what they're doing and how they're making those choices? How do you have a good experience around that? We're really trying to very much center our thinking around what will the experience be of folks using AI in the future."
She does think, however, that it will still take two to three years before we'll really see AI have a strong influence on how people will use their browser.
What if the Google search deal went away?
From a financial perspective, Mozilla is almost completely dependent on its search deal with Google. Since the Department of Justice is now looking at these deals, though mostly because of Google's deal with Apple, there is a risk that this may also end up hurting Mozilla. Chambers didn't seem too concerned about this, however. She noted that the scope of this ruling, which is expected soon, is the U.S., while Mozilla is a global organization.
"When you spend a second to think about what the Department of Justice is trying to do here, they're trying to increase competition, right? The reality is that Mozilla is one of the most powerful elements of competition in this market," she said. "We actually have our own browser engine. We actually have an alternative technology. We're actually one of those very rare technologies [where] we're sort of a Big Tech company, but we're doing good stuff on the internet, so our incentives are actually really aligned in this work. And so you've got to imagine that as they're weighing their rulings and considerations, it would not at all be in their best interest to put Mozilla in a bad situation, because that would decrease competition, which is the whole point of the regulation."
One could argue that this puts more trust into the regulatory bodies than they deserve, but Chambers also noted that the team has worked on scenario planning. Mozilla has tried to diversify its revenue, but at the end of the day, it's Firefox that is keeping the organization afloat.
There can be no doubt, though, that the web would look quite different without Firefox and without Mozilla's advocacy for an open web ecosystem. And while Mozilla itself may be working through its own problems, now is as good a time as ever to see if Firefox may just be the right browser for you (again).
This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/09/as-firefox-turns-20-mozilla-ponders-how-to-restore-it-to-its-former-glory/
