Much has been said and written about Mozilla declining browser share during all these years, first to IE, then to Chrome. As a old and faithful user of your software I'd like to say a few words about that.
When Microsoft was dominating the market, it did so through a vastly inferior browser in terms of features, functionality and security. The only advantage it had, was coming along as the default Windows browser. Internet Explorer was the kind of product that was solely used by people who didn't "knew better", and were unable to install third party software in their computers without any help. Mozilla offered a vastly superior internet suite that integrated a lot of functionality with first class utilities; you only needed to know that it existed. And that's why, despite the unfair business practices of Microsoft, it enjoyed much preference and prestige as a competitor. I loved it, as many others did.
But I have to say that I never liked Firefox. Never, since day one. When Mozilla went all in on this stripped down product, neglecting its far superior brother, it felt to me like an unnecessary forced downgrade and a serious mistake. And I think, years later, this can be observed clearly on the user charts. Since Firefox became Mozilla's flagship product, the user count hasn't stopped going lower. Even today I go back to SeaMonkey myself from time to time, despite its web engine being outdated now, and many pages just not displaying properly anymore.
Firefox was the product of a completely wrong assumption: that power users don't matter, and appealing to the lower common denominator was the key to success. The internet doesn't need yet another IE or another Chrome. The users these browsers currently enjoy, are already well served by these large corporations, just by having recognizable commercial brands stamped into these products. No, it's just power users who could change their current browser, and what they are looking for is a powerful, functional, extremely configurable product able to swipe the floor with the competition by its sheer possibilities of use.
Here I make my suggestion explicit: revive the old suite, pick up Seamonkey's code if necessary, but ditch Firefox. Get into an agreement with the Seamonkey devs and try to fuse both projects somehow, but follow Seamonkey original ideas, principles and UI design, further improving them thanks to Firefox modern engine and other genuine technical advancements over the older project's code. Most importantly, ditch this business mentality of trying to appeal to users who can best be described as "NPCs" for the large corporations. In other words, just give web surfers their old power back.
