Apple tring to push Safari onto Windows users

[EternalSpark]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
It's not the same at all. You don't need iTunes like you need Windows.

Nor do you need Safari. MS bunded IE (that, at the time, nobody used) with a product a lot of people used (Windows). Apple is bundling Safari (that, now, nobody uses) with a product that a lot of people use (Itunes).

And Apple is offering a choice with iTunes

It downloaded automagically for me and DanS. No warning. People want a browser when they get an operating system. People don't want a browser when they upgrade their music player.

MS offers no choice of browser with its OS

Of course not, since you can choose to download another one.

please eview your facts prior to making a post.

I will not retract my statement.

[One_more_turn]

IE is definitely ****.

It's so freaking slow compared to Firefox.

Microsoft can't get anything right since Windows 95. Bill Gates knows this and is jumping the ship before lights go out. He's selling at least 30 million MSFT each quarter. His foundation doesn't have a single share MSFT. If the founder is so bearish on his own creation, what does that say about the company's future?

Tech company is all about good people. When good people leave, the company becomes an empty shell. The company name means little (still remember Commodore, Atari, Apollo, DEC, Wang Labs, Compaq, Burrough's?), past financial performances mean little too because the next disruptor will eat your lunch in a couple of years. Microsoft no longer has the right people to compete against Google and Apple. Because if they did, Steve Ballmer would not have thrown $45 billion at that loser outfit named Yahoo.

Once Microsoft finally swallows Yahoo, it will have squandered all of its cash horde and saddled its balance sheet with at least $10 billion in debt. Next comes the nightmarish migration of Yahoo's Linux infrastructure to MSFT's proprietary Windows NT platform. Chances of that going smoothly? - As good as the fate of Hotmail. Facing this Microsoft will be Apple with its $20 billion cash horde, and Google with its $15 billion cash horde. Steve Ballmer is on his own.

[Jaguar]

There's a huge difference between packaging a browser with an OS and packaging it with music software. You need a browser on a new computer, if only to go to mozilla.org and download Firefox. (That's the only site I've ever visited with IE on my last three windows installs.)

The two situations aren't remotely analogous, and people are just trying to deflect attention from an obviously scuzzy business practice.

[classical_hero]

When i got my new computer, I tried to get to Mozilla dot org, it would not allow me, so I had get Netscape first and then I wass able to get to mozilla. It was frustrating that happened. I would never need IE.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Verto
I agree it's obnoxious. All bundled installs are

Yeah - but they are just using successful MS tactics.

[snoopy369]

MS bundling IE is not a problem. MS making IE un-removable or virtually so was a problem

Apple offering downloads of Safari via Apple Updater is not a problem. Apple implying it is an upgrade of a software you already has is a problem.

[Agathon]

It's a puzzling decision, redolent of some of Realplayer's excesses. I'm guessing it probably has something to do with the iPhone and iPod Touch, since Safari operates on both devices. Apple may want Windows users to have WebKit installed for something in the future. AFAIK the music store doesn't work off of WebKit.

I don't think Apple is really interested in getting Windows users to use Safari as their default desktop browser. There really isn't anything in it for them. Getting them to use Safari as their mobile browser is Apple's target.

[Elok]

Hmm. Suppose I'll continue to ignore both and use Firefox.

[DanQ]

Originally posted by snoopy369
MS bundling IE is not a problem. MS making IE un-removable or virtually so was a problem

Apple offering downloads of Safari via Apple Updater is not a problem. Apple implying it is an upgrade of a software you already has is a problem.

Agreed on both accounts.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by snoopy369
MS bundling IE is not a problem. MS making IE un-removable or virtually so was a problem

Apple offering downloads of Safari via Apple Updater is not a problem. Apple implying it is an upgrade of a software you already has is a problem.

Yep, I also thought it would just be a normal update für my iTunes and suddenly I have Safari on my PC.
Not that I mind it too much, after all it does no harm to me to have Safari on it (although it won´t make me switch from FF to Safari ) but it was a surprise nevertheless

[Ben Kenobi]

Thanks for the real player reference Agathon.

Man that thing was a pain in the ass to remove.

[Riesstiu IV]

Safari on OS X kind of sucks. I get random crashes and it's know surprisingly resource intensive after an update back in January. I switched to Firefox for OS X. While, it's not perfect at least it's not chugging so many CPU processes and eating up an insane amount of memory that it forces the fans to run full blast.

[Wiglaf]

Originally posted by Jaguar
There's a huge difference between packaging a browser with an OS and packaging it with music software. You need a browser on a new computer, if only to go to mozilla.org and download Firefox. (That's the only site I've ever visited with IE on my last three windows installs.)

People want a browser when they get an operating system. People don't want a browser when they upgrade their music player.

Please give me a break over here. The OS can include more than one browser; they require very little space on disk.

It downloaded automagically for me and DanS.

It cannot do this. Apple Updater always asks permission and allows you to review each download individually. NOTHING IS EVER DOWNLOADED AUTOMATICALLY THERE IS NO WAY TO ALLOW THIS

Nor do you need Safari. MS bunded IE (that, at the time, nobody used) with a product a lot of people used (Windows). Apple is bundling Safari (that, now, nobody uses) with a product that a lot of people use (Itunes).

It's not a bundle if it gives you a clear choice and indication of what is being downloaded.

[Asher]

Wiglaf:

OS and browser bundling makes sense. It is important for the programs to have access to a rendering engine built into the OS. On OS X, this is Webkit (which is used by Safari). In Windows, this is Trident (which is used by IE). In Linux, this is either Gecko or Webkit/KHTML depending on the environment. In addition, it's important to give users the vehicle of choice so they can download any browser they choose.

There is absolutely no technical nor use-case reason for iTunes to be forcing Safari out as an "update" to users who have never used it before. The entire purpose of this is a desperate attempt at stealing userbase since no one is using Safari on Windows.

And make no mistake (Agathon particular), owning the web platform is huge. There's no direct profits out of it, but it's very important from a posturing and branding perspective.

And this decision was not a spur of the moment thing or a mistake or made by someone low level...Steve Jobs himself told everyone he would do this last year to "get Safari to Windows users".

There's no way to defend this practice, no one benefits out of this except Apple -- even that is backfiring, a lot of people are pissed off about this.

The forced bundling of QT/iTunes already pissed me off, but there is a reason for this -- iTunes calls QuickTime to actually play the media. They need to coexist. This is not the case with Safari and iTunes.

The wording of this being an "upgrade" to someone who has never installed it is confusing to most users. Most users blindly hit "yes" to any "update" prompts, which is precisely what Apple is counting on here. If people actually wanted to install Safari, they could get it from the site. The whole purpose behind this move is to trick people into using it.

[Asher]

The CEO of Mozilla steps in:

What Apple is doing now with their Apple Software Update on Windows is wrong. It undermines the trust relationship great companies have with their customers, and that’s bad — not just for Apple, but for the security of the whole Web. What they did yesterday was to use their updater for iTunes to also install their Safari Web browser –what follows is some background and analysis.

Keeping software up to date is hard — hard for consumers to understand what patches are for, how to make sure they’re up to date.

It’s also critically, crucially important for the security of end users and for the security of the Web at large that people stay current. If people don’t update software regularly, it is impossible for them to remain safe; good software developers are creating improvements constantly. That’s why Mozilla spends so much time making sure our own Automatic Update Service works, and why we spend so much time agonizing over the user interface for the updates. We look at the data every time we do an update; we obsess about what we call “uptake rates” — the percentage of Firefox users who are on the most current version of the browser a day or a week or a month after release. As a result, Firefox users are incredibly up to date, and adopt very quickly.

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.

Here’s screen that comes up on Windows XP if you’ve got iTunes installed:

The problem here is that it lists Safari for getting an update — and has the “Install” box checked by default — even if you haven’t ever installed Safari on your PC.

That’s a problem because of the dynamic I described above — by and large, 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. I’d much prefer to be writing about Firefox, but this practice hurts everyone and is important to note.]