Around 2007 Google was paying $1 per install/click through to Firefox back when IE was the dominant browser. It seemed like Google threw a ton of money at disrupting the browser market with FF then followed up by launching Chrome.

The article mentions that FF hit %34 in 2010 and acts like that was due to the features, I don't think it was.

For the average browser user we're talking about here talking about bloat and features are irrelevant. FF's market share is just a number bouncing around in the waves between two giant forces, Microsoft which owned the OS for much of this timeline and Google which owns the pages everyone is going to where it is suggesting they install Chrome.