The browser market is so much different now though.

Firefox was originally competing against the pile of steaming garbage that was IE6.

Now they are competing against Chrome which is actually a good browser, and Chrome also has the advantage of having google behind it which can leverage their search/ad monopoly to push Chrome.

> which can leverage their search/ad monopoly to push Chrome.

And which they have shamelessly done.

Wasn’t IE6 a great browser? The best even?

The way I’ve heard the story is that by the time of firefox, IE6 was still a really good browser, it had just stayed stagnant for a little too long, and bundled got with Microsoft’s monopolistic behavior.

I think there are more parallels between late IE6 and present day Chrome then you give credit for.

maybe my memory is fuzzy, but I don't have a single fond memory of IE6. I remember it being a revelation how much better firefox was when I first switched back in the day.

Nobody but techies thought back then that IE6 was a "pile of steaming garbage". We are mostly in the same situation today in this regard.

Chrome is far better than IE6 ever was. Not even close to the same situation IMO.

Pretty much. But they had not ridden Netscape that far down to the bottom just yet. Don't forget that the roots of Mozilla were seeded in 1998, the Mozilla foundation came 6 years later. Netscape was still hugely popular and FireFox took that popularity and ran with it.

To do this today, with a much more complex product would be no mean feat, back then a browser was a much simpler piece of software than it is today.

> Netscape was still hugely popular and FireFox took that popularity and ran with it.

Netscape was not “still hugely popular” when Firefox was created. IE market share was upwards of 90%.