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The iTunes + QT I think is really bad. They should be individual downloads.

What Apple really should do, offer a Software Update download, along with other standalone downloads. As much as I despise downloader applications, Software Update is a handy application which works well.

MacZiMiZer wrote:

You did not answer my question

I'm sorry man, when I said I manually install everything, I meant that to mean that I use the advanced or custom install options. I never just click OK with default settings on software installations or updates.

But besides, what you described is exactly (though you take it farther than average Joe would need to) should be doing, and wouldn't have ended up with Safari.

Users clicking "ok" to anything and everything is not the fault of the company.

Yes Apple shouldn't have done it
No it's not horrible, or even bad

So now this is the user's fault if they end up with safari?

I'm sorry that does not wash with me.

Taking advantage of the fact that most people do just click 'OK' and using it to advance their own agenda (be it installed base or otherwise) and push new software out to unsuspecting users is their fault. That was no accident and its wrong for several different reasons.

NAG wrote:

I'm talking about the general blog reaction to this as well as calling it "malware" instead of just saying they don't agree. Turning it into something so dogmatic like so many people are is incredibly silly. It is wrong because it shows just how hypocritical people are by using an environment of fear while simultaneously claiming they're empowering the user. Sounds a bit like the US government.

I don't consider it malicious, just not the honest way to treat an end user. It is very much the same way that much of the spyware and malicious software on the internet is installed, and in that sense I can see why people are freaking out about it.

Also, no, Apple Software Updater doesn't auto install Safari and it asks for permission to install. If it didn't then you wouldn't even get the window popping up with a description of what Safari is. Ignoring that step is disingenuous. If you're going to argue the semantics of what the word "updater" means then I'm going to argue what "autoinstall" means. It doesn't mean asking to install.

It pops up on your screen and has a list of items checked. There is no real indication that its a different piece of software, in fact I bet a lot of people see it and assume they must already have it since its listed as an update.

Has it been blown out of proportion? Probably. Things like this usually do.

MacZiMiZer wrote:

reece_james wrote:

Bad would be Safari blocking IE working

No that would be good

Then try these on for size.

Safari for Windows having serious issues that deserve second look

...

However  Safari has run into some troubles.  Apple made the dubious decision of trying to coerce iTune's 500 million users into installing Safari along with the normal iTunes update, via a pesky dialog, which comes with the install Safari option checked by default.  Mozilla blasted Apple for this tactic, saying it "borders on malware distribution practices". 

Now someone has humorously pointed out that in its promotional zealousness, Apple appears to have unintentionally encouraged massive violation of and made a mockery of its own End User License Agreement (EULA) for Safari.  EULAs are supposed to set clear legal guidelines for terms of use and help consumers know what they can and cannot do (i.e. you cannot install this software on everyone in your neighborhood's computers).  Apple's EULA states that Safari can be installed on "a single Apple-labeled computer at a time", forbidding non-Apple-marked hardware Windows machines, and the updater itself states that "Use of this software is subject to the original Software License Agreement(s) that accompanied the software being updated."

So apparently Apple has succeeded in massively violating its own EULA, a possible first of this scale, depending on the number of accidental or intentional Safari downloads.  Lawyers point out that concerned citizens need not fear about legal action from Apple.  Jonathan Kramer, a tech attorney who runs Kramer Telecom Law Firm states, "We call this an impossibility issue, you can't enforce a term that's impossible."

Amidst this embarassing debacle, new reports are coming in that Safari is faring rather poorly on Windows XP, with many users experiencing crashes.  Windows XP users who felt smug about Windows Vista bugs, may find an unexpected new source of problems-- Apple.  Apple's support forum is being flooded by angry posters complaining that their XP version of the Safari browser is broken.  Says SakJosep, one such poster, "When I try to start Safari 3.1 in Windows XP, it crashes right away."

OllieK92 echoes the previous posters sentiments, stating, "I have this problem too, I have no idea what it is."

Some users are reporting that the browser simply will not open.  The thread on the problems has received over 1,000 views well before receiving much media coverage, making it clear that the problem may be afflicting many users. [..]

Safari Plagued By Bugs, Accidental Violation Of Its Own EULA

Make it stop.

Security flaws found in Safari for Windows
'Highly Critical' and unpatched

A SHARP Argentinian researcher has raised the alert about two security flaws he discovered in Apple's Safari for Windows web browser.

...

Web User reports that security firm Secunia has classified both of these fresh vulnerabilities as "highly critical" flaws, its second highest severity rating.

These two new Safari for Windows security flaws are as yet unpatched and so far Apple has refused to comment, according to Web User. µ

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ … und-safari

http://www.webuser.co.uk/news/199844.html

MacZiMiZer wrote:

I've seen my fair share, and even I was fooled once, I forget exactly what but I ended up with one of those Yahoo task bar pop things in the bottom right, it was like the plague to remove, for lack of a better word it seemed to be reinstalling itself, and since I mainly use Mac my fixes for windows involve basic cleaning, rebooting, and reformatting heh.  Doesn't work for people with important stuff on their windows box (I never did) unless it's in a state where you can salvage what you need and then hit it with the firehose afterwards.

Yet again, Safari can easily be removed, and doesn't run itself once installed, it just sits there.  YES it should not have happened at all, but again it is no where near even as bad as the -average- thing happening under this "category" I suppose of, mal-intent?  Misleading action from a software company? etc. etc.

If that's true, then what you've really got is a virus pretending to be Yahoo.  But in any case, what Apple has done is bad.  most people here seem to agree --considering this is an Apple forum, that's pretty impressive...

Last edited by Mr. T (2008-03-27 10:31 pm)

MacZiMiZer wrote:

The inquirer?

And doesn't it depend on the flaw?  I remember about a year ago a quicktime flaw could lead to bad stuff, but required the user to do most of the work first.

Your original post cited the Register. The INQ spun off from that in '01 when co-founder "Mad Mike" Magee left and formed the INQ after a disagreement about the Reg's direction.

Also Read. The. Article[s]. INQ cites Webuser, which cites security firm Secunia, which I hope you've heard of where browser security issues are concerned. The general nature of the holes are noted in the articles you didn't read.

And going back a bit, you're misinformed if you think simply installing an app on Windows, used or no, is totally innocuous. It gets into the Registry, and even Quicktime will present you with either defaults or a potentially bewildering array of requests to be associated with a large variety of file and MIME types, usually dissociating them from the apps they were formerly associated with & likely borking them. Last time I let QT have its way on Winders it borked sound generally on the box (excepting itself), and nothing less than a full, current sound driver reinstall would fix things. That will be the last time... keep it lean, keep it mean.

Bat wrote:

And going back a bit, you're misinformed if you think simply installing an app on Windows, used or no, is totally innocuous. It gets into the Registry, and even Quicktime will present you with either defaults or a potentially bewildering array of requests to be associated with a large variety of file and MIME types, usually dissociating them from the apps they were formerly associated with & likely borking them. Last time I let QT have its way on Winders it borked sound generally on the box (excepting itself), and nothing less than a full, current sound driver reinstall would fix things. That will be the last time... keep it lean, keep it mean.

Very true but in the case of Safari I've done some digging around and the only registry changes I could find were COM interfaces for Webkit, which I expect to see with any component based app in windows.

The browser itself appears to rely on the .plist xml configuration files exclusively.

Bat wrote:

That's good. I was more addressing the general issue MacZ raised, that installing an app was basically inconsequential if you did nothing with it.

I hope they work out the bugs. Some people are fine with Windows Safari, others get crash city.

Agreed. In general most windows apps make all sorts of changes. Here is a fun one, decompile the MSI install package for Adobe Acrobat Standard or Pro 7.0.x on a PC and take a look at the registry changes. I came up with approx 1800 on 7.0.9! gah!

This has long been the biggest reason I have doubts OSX will apear for the PC. So many configs to debug... Apple's not used to working their OS for such a varied hardware install base. They keep their ecosystem closed and tight.

I think with Safari on Windows, its more Apple having to deal with Windows and its ecosystem. I think that OS X on Windows would be much easier for them to handle than a windows app sadly. They could limit what hardware worked with OS X and only support the set of drivers they want, on windows they are dealing with all the decisions MS made and all the 3rd party apps out there. Plenty of things can cause instability in an application, a shell extension etc. (I'm sure you know all about it yourself, so please don't take my post as preaching - you are tech savy I am well aware! )

Aye I saw that the other day.  Honestly though, a company wants you to download their software and their updates, they are going to set things to "yes gimme."  It isn't great, Apple should have handled this better the first time around, and it would be wonderful if we lived in a world where corporations could be squeaky clean.  But I'm not going to dream of fairyland, I'll just keep taking the extra second to see what's listed for patching or updating.  I check the list when I open Firefox and it finds updates for the few add-ins I have.

Hell when Firefox 2.0 came out I remember it being slightly pushy for me to upgrade from 1.5 (at least in my opinion)

Firefox and Opera already has a good foothold in the "freeware" side of browsers on windows, and of course Explorer is caked in with windows like grease on your Wendy's burger.

http://www.noob.us/humor/wendys-employe … m-the-80s/

as to Czachorski's question on "why"

the iPod helped grow iTunes (as a store)
They hope Safari will get people to buy OS X (well a mac anyhow).
Or that'd be my guess, perhaps not the main reason, but one of.  Microsoft put out "updates" for Office and Explorer to make it look a little more like vista, though the updates were basically crap, and of course you can only open Office 07 files in 07 unless you save it in non 07 format.

I still would like to see who Apple hired to run and work in the windows department, their "strategies" windows side has seemed a bit different than OS X side, does safari 3.0 even show as a download in software update if you're running 2?  I don't recall seeing it on my laptop though I haven't run software update in a month or so.

Ok now I've noticed that Leopard handles Software Update differently than Tiger.  It's scarily similar to the way XP will download updates without asking (unless you've turned off auto update which I always forget until it's too late).  And then will repeatedly prompt you to restart.  And if you are in a game or anything it will minimize it and ask AGAIN.

I'm not sure who planned that out, if I click restart later it should wait for me.  If the computer was able to boot up fine and download the smurfing update, obviously nothing is absolutely crucial at this moment.

But with leopard it now downloads all software updates (this is all defaults I haven't looked for settings to change somewhere yet).  And will come up with a window asking if I want to install or not, and a show details button, not how it used to popup with the main software update window listing the updates and waiting to download.  Thankfully if I hit the "not now" button I won't hear from it until I boot up the computer another time.  And further more after hitting install I can choose whether to install now or later and that as well is a one time button press.  Of course as soon as I shutdown it will finish the "restart required" updates and shut off.

I'm just wondering why Apple would switch to the prompt rather than sticking with the full window coming up.  Also a little concerning that by default it will download I believe 3-5 gigs of updates without asking me.  (There were updates for a lot of stuff I was putting off, Safati, itunes, quicktime, security update, etc. about 20 items if I recall)

Granted this is on the Mac Pro so hard drive space I have plenty.  But my laptop at one point was down to 1 gig free space when I was using it as a work drive to try and recover some files my dad had deleted off his laptop he needed.  Needless to say I needed every bit of space possible.

Anyone else on Leopard got thoughts on the changes?