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Rumors of Firefox's death have been circling for at least 15 years now... somehow it's kept going despite odd incentives and bad corporate decisions.

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Both can be true. Progressing without innovation only works when your product is Coca-Cola or Bic lighters. FireFox as a name or brand is nowhere near it's former v1.0-3.0 glory days.

Perhaps, but is there any modern browser name or brand that inspires the kind of fierce loyalty Firefox did 20 years ago?

It was the alternative to IE6, the first rays of dawn bringing hope to to a desolate, war-torn funereal valley of culpable corporate complacence.

Hatred for IE6 drove people to Firefox more than anything else - IE was horrible. Firefox users crowdfunded a two-page ad in the New York Times, mostly to get people to move off of IE6.

I think software loyalty is stuck at an all time low. Even the OS wars are over. People are stuck with subscription models. Almost everything has a cloud-based or SaaS service that works on everything. Nobody cares enough to fight about what browser they are using unless it is to fiddle around with adblockers.

Part of it is the psychology of owning vs renting. No one loves a rented house, but the landlord still wins.

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