Apple's backdoor shenanigans pay off
Stealth update triples market share
THE CUPERTINO CABAL'S decision to sneakily piggyback its Safari browser on the last release of Itunes looks to have paid off despite howls of derision from users outraged at being given free software.
The Itunes installer, which included a pre-selected option to update Apple's own-brand browser (even if users had never had it installed in the first place!) looks like it might be responsible for a threefold increase in market penetration in just one month, according to the number-crunching folk over at Market Share.
The update was pushed out to millions of users and it would seem that a fair few of them, once they had recovered from the indignity of the uninvited intrusion, have realised that Safari is actually a pretty darned good wibble wanderer. µ
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Comments
what you mean...
..is that a lot of the people affected fit the Apple target demographic and were either a) too oblivious to notice their browser grafixs had changed, or b) too scared to investigate fearing it could cause their computer to become a bomb that'd kill them and their families.??firefox!1!
Backdoor shenanigans? I don't think I have that DVD, well whatever floats your boat Mr Jobs.Safari is my browser of choice when I have absolutely no other choice.
As a firefox 3 beta tester, I can say Safari is a pretty darn good intraweb trowser (if you don't compare it to anything else) and it is another example of how superior the mac platform is (if you don't compare it to anything). Bring back the G5 I say, it was the best way to melt a hole through your desk by far. No overclocking required and it would tax a watercooling system like a socialist state.
Honestly Opera/Firefox 3 (beta - hurry up damit) is all I ever use right now. Firefox 3 beta is so good as it is, being a beta, Mircoapple and Wormsoft should just quit the browser game while they can avert calamity.
But the big north American Telcos have predicted the death of the internet, so wibblewobblyeb browsers will be moot in the end won't they?
when MS did this
when MS started giving people free software they were fined a fair few $ for using their market position to give away software.... Will the same happen to apple for using their market position to give away software (i doubt it)Safari is actually (a) pretty darned good (browser)
Um, not from what I've heard it isn't.And given that I don't like Itunes and hate QuickTime with a passion, I will refrain from trying it.
I have Mozilla and Firefox and they are quite good enough, thank you.
Apple Idorks
How very Microsoft of them! Nice job mini-me!Anyone dumb enough to use itunes is also the type of person to keep hitting the "next" button while installing software without reading or looking.
I'll bet 99.99999% of them still click on Internet Explorer and really don't know they have Safari.
No they don't
According to TheCounter, Safari usage was 3% in April 2008, the same it's been for the past 12 months.opinions are like assholes
"Anyone dumb enough to use itunes is also the type of person to keep hitting the "next" button while installing software without reading or looking"hi! Windows network administrator here, use windows all the time at work and at home (both my home desktops are running XP Pro). i also have 2 macs (with Mac OS X) and i use iTunes for my iPods (2 of them, 30G videos, work great) because...it's a nice clean interface and it works and it doesn't pester me with ugliness and annoying B$ about DRM. it does what i need it to do...get music onto my iPod.
as for Safari, well, that one is trying hard but going to have a difficult time in an IE world. even with FF or Seamonkey (my browser of choice for purely personal-taste reasons), i have to fall back onto IE at times to get pages to work correctly (though that situation is cropping up less and less over time). i think Safari has some really annoying aspects to it, but i think the same thing about FF or Opera and hey, i don't freak out about it and start making snide comments about Mozilla or whoever the Opera developer is. don't like Safari? DON'T USE IT!! don't like iPhones? DON'T BUY ONE! your opinions are relevant to exactly ONE PERSON!
it's funny how i never hear people complain about the Google toolbar being bundled with Java installer or every other commercial app for awhile. or the "Ask Jeeves" toolbar in Nero 7, or the Yahoo! Messenger software. only Apple (of course) is somehow the new Big Evil Software Company™, and target of unreasoning (and frankly childish) hatred.
Microsoft "bundled" "free" software that couldn't be removed from the computer, that was (until the court orders) an integral part of the operating system. that's a far cry from an optional installation of free software. if it was that same thing, there's no way the court rulings would have been against Microsoft.
honestly, the targets of your vitriol should be users who are too dim to pay attention to the screens on the installer (you know, the ones that give you the option to NOT INSTALL the software if you don't want it) and then complain about extra stuff being installed.
Oh well
Im happy I can live more peacefuly knowing that I don't use Apple or Microsoft products as my primary Operating System. I do have a multi-boot System set up in case I need XP for something....The reality is that APPLE and Microsoft care only about maximizing their profits. I use Linux and that has FireFox installed and Opera works for Linux as well.
I would like to see the Department of Justice get on Ubuntu Linux's case of giving free OPEN SOURCE software and be told they are destroying CHOICE when their OS is free and software is free. ^_^.
Apple can now deliver OS X through WUBI?
Someone commented on how Microsoft was fined for delivering software in this method. Not so. Microsoft threatened to pull the Windows OEM license on anyone who bundled Netscape with a new PC. Thats a fact. Apple isn't a monopoly of an important public utility that benefit's society so they are hardly taking a play from M$FT's playbook.It would be interesting to see how this rouge Pystar pseduo OEM deal plays out. Maybe Apple wants to see how it impacts sales? Apple could do a WUBI type installer for OS X so that you could run OS X side-by-side with Windows. :)
Idiots
How to instantly render your opinions meaningless : Replace the "S" in any Microsoft-related abbreviation with a "$".Grow up ffs.
RE: network administrator DUDE
... Can you use anything else to put stuff onto your iPod besides iTunes?Or you okay with just using that B$ that comes with DRM software?
What MS did was not this!
3 generations of MS OS's, including Betas of Win95, did not even possess a TCP/IP stack (remember paying Peter Tattam 15 bucks for Trumpet Winsock?) much less a browser like Mosaic or Netscape. Nor did they ever have a Mail Client (Eudora) or even a chat program (ICQ).What MS did was an appropriation of their partners software under the hood at sub source level, recompiling it into unrecognizable copy shadows in their library files., and then to disguise it, they pretended that IE "was a part of the OS all along" somehow hidden in Windows File Manager. That little nose stretcher ended up forcing them into having to implement and live with a total security nightmare.
Web browsers should not also be the programs that manage your, and your system's local files. I've given up fighting about browsers, Opera, Firefox, Netscape shall remain my favorites because they are highly adaptable and though not perfect, quite failure safe. Rendering incorrect/broken HTML syntax as mshtml does is a crime, I don't care if IE seems to work on it. It's a dangerous program.
I only run a my spare old dead desktop and stolen laptop Windoze XP's on little virtual machine partitions on both my Mac's using VMware Fusion in Unity mode and they boot inside OS X faster than Windoze loads Word..
Yet I find, iPhoto and ITunes in particular to be pathetic horrid apps, while Safari save its bugs and lack of custom settings not that bad at all
what is really hapening
All apple is doing is pre-checking safari install on apple updater.... While Annoying and many off my customers (reason why they are) downloaded it thinking it was an Itunes update.... do I use Itunes...yes why because I don't like MS player....or winap thingy ....and they don't make amarok for windows..... Stupid..noMS is doing the same thing with silver light (alternative to flash).... and it looks pretty good.
do I like safari (hell no) do I use it....no I never have to.... have I tried safari 3...no will I .... sometime...why.... because there are too many ppl who rate browsers based on looks rather than speed, reliabilty and security...if it passes those I use it other wise (trash can) that means I use firefox 3 beta 5.... because it meets all 3...never has frozen or crashed I love it....super fast....and yes its secure.
So another option...but to claim market share because you pushed the browser through an update is plain stupid....
Roy Walker
Does safari have any anti-phishing tech yet?if no then i cant wait till people get stung by ancient web traps and go WTF happened here?
Roy Walker: "Mr Fish he's waving!"
Apple Free
I'm a long-time Apple hater and will never use anything apple related. I felt sick to my stomach when I found out my nieces were buying mp3's on itunes and playing them on their ipods they so proudly showed me. Apple is the enemy that fueled the RIAA in the first place...I get angry just thinking about it...I just want to smash all the ipods into bits. It's like the whole world is a bunch of freaking idiots! I do have friends that use apple products, but I will not sit quietly and listen to them harping a bunch of Apple propaganda to me about how you can’t make music, movies or edit photos unless you have a Mac. They take advantage of impressionable artists who represent everything good about our future and turn them into worthless mindless drones that repeat propaganda with cultish enthusiasm. I have a right to be angry at the demise of our society...Apple represents everything that is wrong about the future. This backdoor software is another infringement on the pacified users’ rights. I wouldn’t be surprised if it sends Apple a bunch of marketing data in order to “understand” their pathetic users’ needs better.