Stan Beer
Monday, 31 March 2008 05:12
Opinion and Analysis
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Apple is used to doing pretty much as it likes within the confines of its own rarefied kingdom and receiving nothing but accolades from its legion of subjects. The minute the company ventures out into the real world with an unwanted Safari download, Apple gets mauled and its adoring fans wonder why. From the looks of things Apple itself is still wondering why and that's a worry.
The troubling aspect of this unsavoury affair is
not only that Apple by attempting to foist unrequested software on
unsuspecting users behaved like a cheap malware purveyor. The real
worry is that many of the blindly loyal Apple faithful have jumped to
the company's defence, claiming that what it did was acceptable
practice. Even more disturbing, Apple itself has simply pulled its
head in and not said a word - at least I can't find anything.
So what are we to make of this? Apple and its fanatical fans don't see
anything wrong in tricking lax users who trust the company because of
its reputation into downloading new software posing as an update.
Let's leave aside the issue that the new version of Safari has since
been found by Secunia to have a couple of critical security flaws. All
the browsers have security issues that will eventually be discovered
and patched, discovered and patched and so on.
The really important issue is the code of behaviour that reputable
software manufacturers adhere to and what users expect of them in the
world of online downloads.
While some Apple fans and Apple itself may dismiss all the fuss as a
storm in a teacup, this is anything but a storm in a teacup. The
message it has sent iTunes users on Windows is that from now on they
can't trust Apple not to attempt to foist bloatware on them by stealth.
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