Next time you execute Apple Software Update or when the tool launches itself, be sure to pay extra attention to the item offered for download. They might not all be updates. In fact, you might end up with Safari 3.1 on your computer without even knowing how. This because of the subtle and deceptive way that Apple has chosen to push Safari 3.1 down the throat of Windows users, like it or not. But of course that you don't have to swallow, you can always spit it out.

Having launched Safari 3.0 as a public beta in mid 2007, Apple released the final version, labeled 3.1 on March 18. In its characteristic style, the Cupertino-based hardware company applauded Safari 3.1's superiority to Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2.0, both browsers released back in 2006. But this time around, Apple failed to limit the promoting of its latest product to marketing and took matters into its own hands. As a direct consequence, Safari 3.1 is being served automatically to all Windows users that have a piece of apple software installed via the Apple Software Update tool.

As you can see in the screenshot on the left, Apple Software Update is delivering Safari 3.1, checked by default, to a copy of Windows Vista that doesn't even have the Mac OS X native browser installed, and neither iTunes. On the said machine, the only piece of Apple software deployed is QuickTime. In this context, it is obvious that Apple has been reduced to push its products via the same tactics used by Trojan Horses to drop additional malware.

According to statistics made available by Net Applications, Safari is stuck at just 5.70% of the browser market. This while direct rivals Microsoft and Mozilla have shares of 74.88% with Internet Explorer and 17.27% with Firefox. Both Microsoft and Mozilla push their latest finished browser versions via automatic updates. The difference is that, one way or the other, users already have either Internet Explorer 6 or Firefox 1.5 installed, while Apple is serving Safari 3.1 as an update to nothing, delivering and deploying the full browser even on Windows operating systems that have never had a copy of Safari installed.

Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 is available here.
Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 can be grabbed here.