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Fuzzy Logic Apple ‘forcing’ Safari on XP iTunes users - ‘choice’ or click trickery?
Fuzzy Logic Apple ‘forcing’ Safari on XP iTunes users - ‘choice’ or click trickery? | Apple ‘forcing’ Safari on XP iTunes users - ‘choice’ or click trickery? |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Saturday, 22 March 2008 | |
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Page 2 of 3 Microsoft Watch’s Joe Wilcox isn’t too perturbed by Apple’s decision to offer a completely new program in an updater that, one would expect, is only designed for offer ‘updates’ to existing programs. Mozilla CEO John Lilly couldn’t be more annoyed and aghast at Apple’s decision, as he explains in his personal blog. Lilly practically equates Apple’s practices as being the same as those whose distribute malware. Lilly says that: “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.” Lilly notes that there is confusion out there when users are updating their computers, saying that: “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.” Lilly then explains that updated software is important, saying: “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.” Spruiking Mozilla’s own update service, Lilly says that: “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.” Lilly then talks about the nature of trust between the user and the software developer, saying that: “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.” Lilly then notes his big problem with Apple’s Software Updater: “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.” The consequences? Lilly says: “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.” Lilly then says it’s a practice that has to stop: “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.” So, is this a bad practice, or is everyone overreacting needlessly? Please read onto page 3. |
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