I just read the story over at Cybernet News and thought it was worth commenting about. Apple apparently found a way to shove the Safari browser down the throats of Windows users by bundling it with iTunes update. They report a new version of Safari when a user searches in iTunes for updates. This happens even if Safari has never been installed on the system before.
The update menu states that the user should select the items that he wants to update and Safari is in that list. Many would call it gray-hat or even black-hat tactics to artificially pump up the installed user base of a product this way. Most of the inexperienced users won’t probably even realize what the are installing and assume that Safari is a part of the iTunes suite.
Apple already received some fire from the Mozilla CEO which is in my opinion justified. One should also consider that only a fraction of the users who actually download the Safari browser using the iTunes update will use it actively. If they do not know what it does why should they use it ?
Apple should definitely stop calling it an update and stop providing it in the Apple Software Updater if no previous version of Safari had been installed on the computer. It’s plain wrong in my opinion and lets to much confusion.
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