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March 21, 2008

people

Mozilla CEO has a bone to pick with Apple’s Safari-pushing tactics

Posted Mar. 21, ’08, 5:45 PM PT by David Dahlquist
Category | Apple » People

john lilly.jpgWe’ve all heard the news about Apple generously including its Safari browser in Windows iTunes updates, albeit potentially without the user’s awareness. This decision has garnered an overall negative response from the blogosphere, and now Mozilla’s CEO John Lilly has spoken out against this practice, saying that it’s just “wrong”.

“Apple has made it incredibly easy — the default, even — for users to install ride along software that they didn’t ask for, and maybe didn’t want,” said Lilly. “This is wrong, and borders on malware distribution practices.”

Ouch. We hope that naughty Apple has learned its lesson and won’t try to sneak better browsers on Windows users in the future.

[Via Macworld]


13 Comments

Goobimama said:

You can just imagine the outrage that would have followed if it were Microsoft that had done such a thing...

March 21, 2008 7:17 PM
Dan said:

Windows is the last place to be sneaking in software. With the abundance of crapware and spyware on the platform, why the hell is apple doing this?

Lilly is very right about it being close to malware distribution. When Google inserted links to their products for specific searches (i.e., search for Yahoo Calendar, see a shiny ad for Google Calendar), there was such an uproar that they pulled it. When apple does worse (pushing software on people is far worse than suggesting it), mac users roll out the red carpet, what gives?

If the MacBU were to use Office update to push a new version of IE, there'd be calls for blood as well. If we don't want this crap from other companies, why tolerate it from apple?

March 21, 2008 11:12 PM
James Madley said:

It's a bad practice but Apple isn't the only one doing it.

I've seen high quality freeware that does much worse, like requiring Growl to work even though the app doesn't use Growl to carry out its operations.

Is this really a problem though? Windows people always complain if an app offers to do something they don't want. They're always whining about how QuickTime takes over their media even though they had to hit OK.

And Microsoft already does this. Need I mention WGA?

March 22, 2008 12:44 AM
dood said:

Sorry to say but, Safari on Windows is ugly and looks very out of place especially on Vista

March 22, 2008 2:04 AM
Kelmon said:

"We hope that naughty Apple has learned its lesson and won’t try to sneak better browsers on Windows users in the future."

David, it almost sounds as though you are OK with this. While it's not the end of the world and these things are worth holding in perspective, this is WRONG. Software Update should not be providing new versions of applications that you do not already use, and it certainly should not be setting the default to install. It drives me nuts on a Windows machine that Sun tries to install the bloody Google/Yahoo! Toolbar for IE whenever they push out an update for the Java runtime client and this is no different. It makes no difference as to whether your or I think Safari is a good browser. Quite a lot of Windows users already use Firefox and there are many (if not most) who will argue that Firefox for Windows is better than Safari for Windows - do you think they will appreciate Apple installing Safari 3.1 for them?

This is just disgraceful. Firefox didn't need to use such tactics to get the installed user base that it has today, and that was done when IE was the ONLY browser that anyone really knew of. There is no reason why Apple needs to do this and doing so is only going to annoy Windows users.

March 22, 2008 4:58 AM
Fer Servadu said:

"Naughty Apple?" I don't think Microsoft would be described as merely 'naughty' if it automatically installed IE on your Mac (regardless of whether you already had a version) when you attempted to update Office 2004.

I have used Apple computers since 1979, and this is precisely the kind of corporate behavior that has led me to finally move away from Apple and into the arms of Linux.

Naughty indeed.

March 22, 2008 6:01 AM
fletcher Author Profile Page said:

I can't help but be reminded how much junk used to ride along with Netscape back in the day.

March 22, 2008 7:32 AM
Mark 2000 said:

"won’t try to sneak better browsers on Windows users in the future"

Macuser, why must you be SUCH fanboys? This is obviously an underhanded practice. Have some integrity and accept that a spade is a spade even from Apple.

March 22, 2008 12:39 PM
Dave-O said:

The checkbox should be off by default. But this is still a far cry from Logitech installers that put APE on users systems, causing them to break when they updated the OS because they had no idea there were haxies installed.

Personally, I'd be happy if Apple stopped putting shortcuts on the desktop without asking.

Funny thing is, I was running Safari on Windows. When I ran Software Update, it said my system was up to date. I had to go to Apple's website to download Safari 3.1 (is it possible Apple responded, and there's just a persistent self-feeding meme going?).

March 22, 2008 4:03 PM
Bill Gates said:

Hmmmmmmm

A better browser?? Funny, I thought that was Firefox.

Am now just waiting for the MacUser team to insinuate they aren't brainwashed or capable of making a truly individual decision.

Safari is like most things, useful as freeware added to a Mac, till you download firefox. And didn't Microsoft get a pretty serious smack on the hand for loading IE into all it's OS's?? What can I say, Mr Jobs was never interested in the money or taking over the world.....I may be wrong about that one.

Well done for yet another stellar and unbiased piece of writing/reporting/words

March 22, 2008 4:56 PM
David Dahlquist said:

For the record, I do not support Apple's tactics in this situation, and I didn't mean for my post to imply that I supported it. However I think it's pretty safe to refer to Safari as a superior browser to Microsoft Explorer without sounding especially fanboyish.

March 22, 2008 6:49 PM
Derik DeLong Author Profile Page said:

Mark, Bill,

You must be new here.

March 23, 2008 12:12 PM
JW said:

All I want are iTunes updates so I can listen to music and audiobooks. Apple already forces QuickTime onto my computer and absolutely won't let me run iTunes without it. Furthermore with every software update (which occur way too often), Apple decides that QuickTime (which I NEVER use) and iTunes (which I launch once in a while) MUST be RE-installed into both my QuickLaunch and my Desktop without my consent. Respectable software (much less software updates) don't much such presumptions.

Now these folks at Apple take it to a new level of sleaziness. They try to catch me not paying close attention once during a software UPDATE to try install a completely unrelated application -- Safari (negative option installation). I only want my damn iTunes UPDATEd so malware is a good word for this practice. I don't want QuickTime and especially don't want Safari installed on my computer if I forget to opt out once.

You won't find me cheering Microsoft but even Microsoft leaves unrelated optional software unchecked by default during updates. Also, Microsoft updates don't repeatedly drop undesired shortcuts into my QuickLaunch or Desktop the way Apple does.

April 9, 2008 10:24 AM

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