Apple 'forcing' Safari on XP iTunes users - 'choice' or click trickery?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 22 March 2008 14:57

Opinion and Analysis

Is it a bad practice? Whether it’s bad, or not, it certainly is sneaky. Apple have, of course, done this before – iTunes and Quicktime are bundled together, although Apple would say this is because Quicktime is used to play videos downloaded through the Apple store.

There can be no doubt that millions more XP computers around the world now have Safari loaded onto them where Safari wasn’t loaded before. The fact that Safari is an excellent browser, and in version 3.1, is faster than ever, isn’t a valid reason for Apple to ‘trick’ users into installing it.

Apple should have done a better job of promoting Safari to get users to voluntarily choose to use the Safari browser, rather than hoping users will see this new icon, wonder what it is, click on it and wonder how it got there. Firefox has worked wonders with word-of-mouth advertising to generate a massive installed user base that is threatening IE7 as never before.

Surprising users in this manner isn’t a safe online practice, and one that might even be co-opted by malware writers deciding to call their latest malware program ‘Safari’. They might even create some kind of ‘web installer’ that looks like Apple’s ‘Software Updater’ in an attempt to fool people into downloading Apple’s latest browser.

Of course such attempts could easily be used against Firefox or any other software. It is already being used by malware writers trying to get online video viewers to download a ‘codec.exe’ which will let them watch certain online videos, usually naughty ones.

Personally, I expect better from Apple than any underhand moves to increase Safari’s user base. The easiest step of all would have been to offer Safari in the ‘Software Updater’ – but without the tick already in the box.

Facebook learned the hard way that an automatic opt-in is a bad idea. Apple will have to learn this lesson, too.