KEY POINTS:
Mozilla CEO John Lilly has blasted Apple for including the Safari browser for Windows in its software update.
He says it tricks Windows users into downloading the new browser by bundling it with updates for iTunes and QuickTime.
"What Apple is doing now with their Apple Software Update
on Windows is wrong," said Lilly in his blog.
"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."
He said that bundling a new piece of software with updates designed to keep other applications secure was unethical, and that Mozilla staff were extremely selective about what was included in Firefox updates.
"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."
"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."
"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," says the blog.
"This is wrong, and borders on malware distribution practices."
His comments have cause a swift and rowdy reaction - from those who agree that Apple's distribution system was dodgy, and others who are defending it.
One agreeable response said: "The point of updating is to update existing software currently used...not downloading new software from the company that isn't on your computer. I find this despicable, but in all I have nothing bad to say against Safari either."
"If Microsoft did the identical action, install some non-user-selected software using their software update channel, there would be cacophony across the internet," wrote Gen Kanai.
"Wow. You Windows users are not only paranoid, but so anti-Apple that your comments are hysterical," wrote one blog reader under the name 'slb'.
"This is the biggest NON-ISSUE yet &45; and anyone using a computer that can't use that screen and make a good decision should go back to a typewriter."
Lilly did point out that his comments were not a criticism of the Safari browser, and that he had no objections to the "basic industry practice" of using installed software as a channel for other software but said the practice of using an updating system "hurts everyone."
- NZ HERALD STAFF
