Firefox wasn't "bloated", it had a whole ecosystem of browser extensions that HN types loved which by the nature of the extension model ran synchronously with the UI and often stepped on each other's toes, broke on updates, and led to terrible memory leaks.

They were then screamed at for being insufficiently "complacent" when they tried to fix those issues by changing the extension model.

Wasn’t FF getting long in the tooth by 2008, slow and dated? I didn’t have any extensions besides uBlock and Firebug and it didn’t feel as fast as it used to be. Wasn’t that the whole point of project Electrolysis?

Firebug was one of the worst offenders, despite being a very nice tool.