> Then Chrome won when it was significantly than Firefox in ways lots of people cared about (it was fast and if a tab crashed the whole browser didn’t crash with it).

Firefox shill here. I believe Chrome won because 1) Firefox had long been struggling with RAM consumption and stability 2) Chrome's onboarding was closer to effortless 3) It was relentlessly marketed/placed to saturation.

Chrome had it's own RAM issues but #3 outweighed that. Any lock-in Chrome now has is due to A) #3, B) a better sync process that's integrated with Gmail and C) better corporate deployment (Gmail+Chrome).

I've had my corp customers on Chrome over Firefox by about 4 to 1. I'm not happy about that but I have to prioritize their experience.

However, Firefox has drastically improved in stability (as has Chrome). Chrome is getting less friendly. Where syncing isn't used, I see paths to swap users over the next year or so.