you missed a step. focus stealling is only prevented if you focus a window while you waiting for something to load.
1.- Launch GNOME terminal 2.- Launch Epiphany. 3.- The Epiphany window appears on top of GNOME terminal as expected. 4.- Select the GNOME terminal window. 5.- Launch a new instance of Epiphany 6.- select gnome terminal, before epiphany is loaded 7.- epiphany does not steal the focus from gnome terminal. with the fast loading applications you may not have time to select another window. -- Firefox windows do not get focus when launched https://launchpad.net/bugs/41623 -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs