Mozzarella big cheese bites Apple
25 Mar 2008 | 11:35 GMT
Lilly bemoans Safari sneaking in through the back door
MOZILLA LARGE FROMAGE John Lilly has had a pop at Apple's sneaky back-door shenanigans.
He said on his bog 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."
He was referring to Apple's decision to bundle Apple Software Update with the latest free download of Itunes. The thing that really seems to have got everybody's panties in a bunch is that the updater also offers to install the latest version of Safari... even if you've never had it installed. Hardly an 'update' in our book.
And the real kicker is that the box is pre-ticked meaning that you have to go through all the time and effort of unticking a box to stop the evil Apple empire from installing some free software on your machine.
Comments on Lilly's blog posting are pretty evenly split between those foaming at the mouth about the injustice of it all and those saying 'Everyone does it... get over it. Just untick the box!' or words to that effect.
Lilly has been accused in some quarters of complaining to protect his own interests (a large chunk of Mozilla's income comes straight from the coffers of the mighty Google). But he strongly denied this in a follow-up post: "It isn’t about competition. As a consumer, I want more competition. Firefox is better because there’s competition from Safari and others — that’s great, because it means that normal people can find the software that works best for them and make their own choices. Competition — and choice — is central to everything we do; without it, we’re nowhere. µ
© 2007 Incisive Media Investments Ltd. 2007