I added a new user, "adduser testuser", and was able to run both firefox and chromium from the new user, jim. I logged jim out and logged back in as my user and Firefox appears to be starting and then generate a "Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To use Firefox, you must first close the existing Firefox process, restart your device, or use a different profile. ps does not show any other firefox processes and a restart did not solve the problem either.
I am tempted to delete my account and remake it. I suspect that would work.
chromium runs but generates some output that suggests that all is not well.
michael@oxygen:~$ chromium
/bin/bash: warning: setlocale: LC_ALL: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8)
[5612:5775:0501/150818.147981:ERROR:object_proxy.cc(623)] Failed to call method: org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties.Get: object_path= /org/freedesktop/UPower: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.UPower was not provided by any .service files
[5612:5775:0501/150818.149367:ERROR:object_proxy.cc(623)] Failed to call method: org.freedesktop.UPower.GetDisplayDevice: object_path= /org/freedesktop/UPower: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.UPower was not provided by any .service files
[5612:5775:0501/150818.150519:ERROR:object_proxy.cc(623)] Failed to call method: org.freedesktop.UPower.EnumerateDevices: object_path= /org/freedesktop/UPower: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.UPower was not provided by any .service files
MESA-LOADER: failed to retrieve device information
MESA-LOADER: failed to retrieve device information
MESA-LOADER: failed to retrieve device information
MESA-LOADER: failed to open kms_swrast: /snap/chromium/1975/gnome-platform/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/dri/kms_swrast_dri.so: cannot open shared object file: Permission denied (search paths /snap/chromium/1975/gnome-platform/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/dri)
failed to load driver: kms_swrast
MESA-LOADER: failed to open swrast: /snap/chromium/1975/gnome-platform/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/dri/swrast_dri.so: cannot open shared object file: Permission denied (search paths /snap/chromium/1975/gnome-platform/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/dri)
failed to load swrast driver
[5612:5721:0501/150822.933079:ERROR:udev_watcher.cc(98)] Failed to begin udev enumeration.