[giovannibajo1]

A technical centric view of a browser would focus on the rendering engine. But modern browsers, in their being almost small operating systems, go very far beyond the HTML/CSS/JavaScript rendering engine. I will list a few things that vary between browsers irrespective of the rendering engine: tab handling, incognito mode, extension system/ecosystem, privacy handling, search/url bar/completion, security policies, anti malware strategies, download manager, history management, bookmark management, cross platform syncing, password management. And all these things have a higher impact on the user experience than the rendering engine.

All these things might be completely different between Firefox and Safari on iOS. Saying that Firefox on iOS is not "a real browser" is an understatement.

[ploxiln]

Don't be ridiculous, the rendering engine is much more complex and many more lines of code than the GUI features. And browsers have had bookmarks, tabs, and password managers for a decade now.

More importantly, the rendering engine is what matters to the "open web", if you care about that. If there's only one rendering engine which "everyone" uses, then websites are designed to the bugs and quirks of that engine, then that engine need not fix any bugs, then those bugs become the de-facto standard. Then users can't use the web from the platform or browser UI of their choice if the only web rendering engine of note doesn't support it.

[veidr]

The engines of a 747 are much more complex and designing them takes many more man-hours of engineering than does designing comfortable and spacious seats.

But assuming the engines don't fail to perform correctly, which one do you think 99.9% of passengers care more about?

[ploxiln]

Engines aren't just "correct" or "incorrect", they perform differently. Users switched to Chrome from IE because Chrome was well marketed on a website they already used (google) and was way, way faster than IE. Many also switched on OS X because it was a bit faster, more feature-full, and marketed/perceived as way faster. It wasn't because they loved the Chrome UI.

I still regularly have to help "common people" find everything but the new-tab button in Chrome (and every browser).

Finally, it's clear that UI/UX designers always say they're making software "more intuitive" and "a joy to use" but no one (except grumpy engineers like me...) know what to click or where stuff is hidden anyway. It's all just UI churn, around in circles. Show feature prominently because users don't know how to find it, then hide it because the UI is too cluttered. Repeat.

EDIT: and all that's not the main point, sorry ... anyway, the "mass market" or "common" user's ignorance doesn't change the importance of the engine to the "open web". And don't forget how Firefox started, with only particularly savvy users caring to install it.

[veidr]

I agree -- I would totally fly on a plane with uncomfortable seats but an engine that would get me from Tokyo to Seattle 40% faster.

And I am not saying the renderer doesn't matter. My contention is just that the featureset and the UI probably matters more today, for most people. Historically, that wasn't true. (I consider switching from IE "historical". I don't know anybody who uses MSIE today, except for one-off reason like accessing some legacy banking system.)

[arm]

Um… based on your stance, I don’t think you meant to call that “an understatement”. ;)