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If you give a Chrome user Chrome but with Gecko for rendering almost nobody would notice, most tech folks probably wouldn't even notice. But swap that around an
by sli 7y ago
If you give a Chrome user Chrome but with Gecko for rendering almost nobody would notice, most tech folks probably wouldn't even notice. But swap that around and give a Chrome user Firefox but using Webkit for rendering, everyone single user would notice.
The average user does not care one bit about the rendering engine, and likely doesn't even conceive of their browser having that moving part. That's the whole reason why "browser" and "rendering engine" are not the same thing, because one is the application and the other is just a single component of a larger application. If Firefox switched to Servo but left everything else the same, nobody is going to demand they rename the browser, because only a single component was changed. The entire rest of the browser would be intact and still identical in form and function.
The amount of conflation of rendering engine and browser application in this HN thread is unbelievable.
- kragen 7y ago1. Lots of people empirically don't notice the difference between using Linux and using Microsoft Windows. That doesn't mean they're the same operating system. 2. Chrome users will definitely notice if you give them Chrome but with Elinks or Dillo for rendering. Also, upthread I listed 12 differences Chrome users might notice with Gecko; although they might not, for example, understand why their browser was using so much less RAM, they would definitely notice the difference.