« Learning Technology Categories Increasingly Blurry | Main | Patent Office Rejects Blackboard’s User Role Patent »
Apple Pushing Safari Through iTunes Update Applet
By Richard Nantel | March 25, 2008
Here’s a surprise. My Apple update applet popped up today. I assumed this was, as is usually the case, an upgrade for iTunes. I almost clicked the Install button before realizing the applet would install Safari, Apple’s Web browser.
I hate this type of thing.
These types of practices are more than annoyances. They erode the trust software users have in software providers.
We’re always shocked to hear that millions of computers worldwide are infected with malicious software that allows them to be controlled remotely, without the owners being aware, to send spam and launch denial of service attacks.
We rarely, however, hear outrage over the battle for our computer’s file associations by software companies we trust. In the past, I’ve had to endure media players battling it out for my desktop. I’d come across a Real Audio file I needed to listen to, would install the player, and would discover that the player had switched all media file type associations to Real Player. I’d spend 30 minutes switching associations back and would need to repeat the same exercise again the next time QuickTime or Windows Media Player provided an update.
Lately, Google and Microsoft have been battling it out for possession of my documents and spreadsheets. If someone sends me a link to a .doc file located on the Web, Google Docs now opens the document instead of Microsoft Word. So, at some point in recent time, Google has decided to switch my computer’s file type associations without informing me. (It’s probably in the fine print of a user agreement somewhere that says I agreed to this.)
So now Apple has decided to try to sneak Safari onto my desktop to battle it out with Mozilla Firefox to become the provider of my Web browsing experience. I’ve heard good things about the Safari browser, but today’s event has eliminated any curiosity I may have had to try it out.
For me, these practices fuel my desire to abandon desktop-based software altogether. With nothing on my workstation to update, I’ll not need to deal with file association battles. As an experiment, I’m installing Ubuntu, a version of Linux, on an old computer with the intent of using it only with Web-based apps. I’ll keep you posted.
Topics: Web |
