The iTunes/Safari Fiasco

Let me start this post by saying that my ThinkPad already has Safari installed anyway, so I really don't care if Apple pushes a Quicktime/iTunes/Safari update to my machine. In fact, I intend to go try out the new version of WinSafari pretty soon, because I really like it, save the fact that scrolling doesn't work with the TrackPoint.

So when I started hearing about how Apple is now "pushing" Safari on people who don't know not to uncheck the box, it gave me kind of a chuckle. A lot of people are saying it's wrong that Apple is distributing Safari like this, and that it borders on the practices of those distributing malware. Of course, I'll refrain from saying anything about the Windows Live applications that always want you to install more, more more, or the difficulty of installing any kind of Google product without getting Adobe Reader, RealPlayer and one or two other things with them.

The thing is that the apps affected by this updater on Windows are all actually part of the operating system on a Mac. Which is one of the reasons I suppose the updater is probably behaving that way. On the Mac, it's the default behavior to get you updates for apps that usually ship on the system or with the retail versions, even if you don't currently have them installed. I've seen iTunes come in on Software Update for a Mac that I chose not to install iTunes on. It's just one of the things Apple does.

In all reality, between typical Windows desktop clutter, and the fact that most people don't even know what's already on their computer, I doubt most normal people will notice this. All the people observant enough to know that there's a check box they can undo have already undone said check box.

It would be evil, however, if Apple were actually hijacking machines by setting Safari up as the default browser on people's machines, or changing Firefox/IE home pages to pages explaining about Safari.