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Mozilla’s Firefox has made strides in recent years as consumers have drifted away from Internet Explorer to the open-source Web browser. The latest Nielsen Online survey showed Firefox with 15% of U.S. online adults, and the company set a Guinness World Record for downloads in 24 hours when it released Firefox 3 in July.

Now, faced with competition from Google’s Chrome browser, Firefox is cajoling regular-Joe users to use add-ons, a feature at the heart of Firefox.

The Mountain View, Calif. company’s 5,000+ add-ons range from search toolbars to a Calvin-and-Hobbes popup generator. But as many as 70% to 80% of Firefox users don’t install any of them, estimates Mike Shaver, Mozilla’s vice president of engineering.

This is heresy to Firefox devotees who can’t live without Adblock Plus or Greasemonkey, and sort of like using Facebook just to display your favorite TV shows. (Or buying an iPhone just to make phone calls, but it turns out some people do exactly that.)

Now Mozilla has launched Fashion Your Firefox, which bundles popular add-ons based on nine categories. The categories are named after personality types, including “Social Butterfly,” which includes add-ons for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and “Shopaholic,” with eBay and RetailMeNot options.

The idea is to promote some of the add-ons that appeal to mainstream users and make it easier to install them, says Mary Colvig, a marketing manager at Mozilla. “I definitely think it’s an awareness problem,” she says. “A lot of people are still not aware that they have choice.”

- Andrew LaVallee

Source: WSJ.com: Business Technology