Making Creator Headlines · Page 7
Firefox Invites Users Back to 2009, When Its Market Share Was Much Easier to Remember
· New York time
Mozilla is appealing to nostalgia as it tries to bring users back to Firefox. The campaign looks toward 2009, when the browser reached its peak market share and the social web had a different character. At the time, about 32% of internet users chose Firefox; its share has since declined to roughly 3%, according to the report. The browser now competes with established defaults and major rivals. Google's Chrome remains a leading choice, Safari comes with iPhones, and Microsoft's Edge has replaced Internet Explorer. Against those habits, Mozilla is asking people to remember a period when Firefox had a much larger place in their online lives. The campaign also recalls an earlier creator culture and a social web built more visibly around interactions between people. That memory gives Mozilla an emotional way to approach a practical decision: which program someone uses to reach the internet today. Remembering an old favorite, however, is not quite the same task as changing a current default. Firefox has a persuasive historical argument: users once chose it in much larger numbers. The harder part is making that memory useful in a market where many people rarely think about the browser at all. Nostalgia can open the tab. It still needs a reason to keep it open.
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