Apple’s delivery method for Safari browser for Windows causes hullaballoo

By Janine de Blois

Apple has added its Safari 3.1 browser to install by default with its updates to iTunes and QuickTime on Windows. A user is led to believe their current software is being updated when in fact new software is being installed, probably unintentionally by the user. This is the same way they delivered iTunes as default on a QuickTime update.

John Lilly, chief executive at Mozilla responded on his blog, “There’s an implicit trust relationship between software makers and customers in this regard: as a software maker we promise to do our very best to keep users safe and will provide the quickest updates possible, with absolutely no other agenda. And when the user trusts the software maker, they’ll generally go ahead and install the patch, keeping themselves and everyone else safe.
Anyone who uses iTunes on Windows has Apple Software Update installed on their machines, which does just what I’ve described above: it checks for new patches available for Apple-produced software on your Windows machine, alerts the user to the availability, and allows updates to be installed. That’s great — wonderful, in fact. Makes everyone more likely to have current, patched versions of Apple’s software, and makes everyone safer.”
“…all software makers are trying to get users to trust us on updates, and so the likely behavior here is for users to just click “Install 2 items,” which means that they’ve now installed a completely new piece of software, quite possibly completely unintentionally. 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. This is wrong, and borders on malware distribution practices.
It’s wrong because it undermines the trust that we’re all trying to build with users. Because it means that an update isn’t just an update, but is maybe something more. Because it ultimately undermines the safety of users on the web by eroding that relationship. It’s a bad practice and should stop.”

“[I’ll make 2 points that I want to make very clear: (1) this is not a criticism of Safari as a web browser in any way, and (2) I have no objections to the basic industry practice of using your installed software as a channel for other software. This is specifically a criticism of the way they’re using the updating system.”

From the responses on Lilly’s blog and elsewhere on the internet most users agree with him. Apple is by no means the only company guilty of this. Security updates are the only ones that should be installed by default. All optional updates or software downloads should be listed separately, not automatically checked off, and with a clear explanations given.