Ask HN: Is a browser plugin startup doomed to fail?

[grab]

So what are today's acceptances for installing browser plugin apps? It's hard enough to get users, but also demand from them to install a plugin? Sounds crazy. Will IE users even bother installing anything? It will most likely require much more steps than firefox.

Then again, in firefox featured addons page, some apps get 50k+ weekly downloads.

[hshah]

Here's a Andrew Warner interview with Jay Meattle where he talks about how Shareaholic reached 2+ millions installs of their browser add-on: http://mixergy.com/shareaholic-jay-meattle-interview/