"Firefox needs to battle Internet Explorer and Opera. Both come pre-installed in Windows and Macintosh and Blackberry. Counting on Firefox to just be better to win against these two is naive at best."

~ someone similar to randoramax circa 2003-2004.

Worth noting that Firefox has won this battle before, and paved the way for Chrome/WebKit/Edge while doing so.

As far as I can tell, Fifefox has never "won". The best they did was a strong second in ~2007-2010 with about 20-30% market share: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers

Chrome and Safari are much stronger competitors than Internet Explorer was then, so its understandable why Firefox is struggling. Being locked out of iOS doesn't help either, though I'm not sure it would make much of a difference even if they weren't.

20/30% market share is a massive win for an ethically-led company in a market dominated by the richest companies in the world (literally).

They don’t need 51% and never will. What Mozilla needs is a solid 15/20% to buy a seat at the tables that matter (standards etc).

Btw, if iOS allowed any other browser, Safari’s numbers would go way down almost immediately. Way.

You downplay the fact that Firefox at the time had Google's backing to go after Microsoft. Opera was never a threat, it was the "token" choice for Microsoft to avoid further upsetting the antitrust agencies.

It's a whole different world today.

I don't think it is. Chrome these days feels like it's being maintained solely as a platform for running Google Docs. And Edge is based on Chromium, a good indication that Microsoft is not very interested in aggressively engaging in browser wars.

So I believe that Firefox has a good chance to gain ground. And Firefox is already doing great and feels much fresher, at least from Chrome. More importantly, we are a far-cry from the crippling incompatibilities of previous browser wars, which essentially required you to replicate the bugs of your opponents.

Also, a "win" for Firefox wouldn't necessarily be toppling Chrome from #1. E.g. a healthy market share percentage + being the top self-installed browser would be a win. Dominating the browser market may even hurt Mozilla Corp., as it could force an aggressive reaction from Google (reduced funding, or even buying them if they can get around anti-monopoly regulations).