The Firefox Marketplace shuts down this Friday

As you probably know, Mozilla's effort to enter the mobile operating systems market turned quickly into a failure. Firefox OS was commercially released in 2013, but in December 2015 Mozilla was already announcing its decision to stop development of new handsets powered by this mobile operating system. In September 2016, the company announced the end of its development. However, the Firefox Marketplace remained online ever since. Now, this last bastion has only a few days left as well.

In addition to the usual content, the homepage of the Firefox Marketplace now also contains the following message: "The Marketplace will shut down on March 30th, 2018. If there are any apps that you would like, and have not downloaded yet, please do so before that date." 

Back on March 29, 2016, the Firefox Marketplace stopped supporting Android, desktop, tablets, and payments of any kind. Since the Web Runtime was removed in Firefox 47 for Android and Firefox 48 for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, the apps that worked on those platforms stopped working. However, Firefox OS users were able to install all the Firefox Marketplace apps ever since and can still do it until Friday, March 30, 2018.

Those still adventurous enough to use a Firefox OS-driven smartphone as their main device should think about finally grabbing a low-end Android Go handset, but the die-hard fans should be able to keep using their devices until the hardware finally dies. The list of Firefox OS smartphones includes devices like the ZTE Open C, LG's Fireweb, the Alcatel One Touch Fire, and the Spanish Geeksphone Revolution.

If you happen to have a few minutes to spare, you should take a look at the two movies below. In the end, it looks like Google's Android Go initiative might succeed exactly where the Mozilla Firefox OS failed. If you think otherwise, please share with us your thoughts in the comments section.