Mozilla Welcomes Competition but Says Apple Uses Malware Distribution Practices

While Microsoft is completely mute on the automatic delivery of Safari 3.1 via Apple Software Update even to the Windows users that do not have the Mac OS X native browser installed, Mozilla Chief Executive Officer John Lilly said that the practice was "wrong." Lilly came out with an update following the original criticism stating that Mozilla welcomes competition, but maintained that the Cupertino-based hardware company hurts web security by simply undermining "the trust relationship great companies have with their customers." After the finalization of Safari 3.1, Apple began serving the browser to all Windows users via Apple Software Update, a tool that is adjacent to software products from the Cupertino-based company such as iTunes.

"The problem here is that Apple Software Update lists Safari for getting an update — and has the 'Install' box checked by default — even if you haven’t ever installed Safari on your PC. That’s a problem because (...), all software makers are trying to get users to trust us on updates, and so the likely behavior here is for users to just click 'Install 2 items,' which means that they’ve now installed a completely new piece of software, quite possibly completely unintentionally. Apple has made it incredibly easy — the default, even — for users to install ride along software that they didn’t ask for, and maybe didn’t want. This is wrong, and borders on malware distribution practices," Lilly explained.

Despite having made the first public beta of Safari for Windows Vista and Windows XP available to the public in mid-2007, Apple has failed to gather a crowd or to convert users away from Internet Explorer and Firefox. This is why Safari is still stuck at 5.70% of the browser market in comparison to 17.27% of Firefox and 74.88% of Internet Explorer, according to data made available by Net Applications.

"Competition is good — necessary, actually. Competition — or, more the point, the ability of people to choose what tools and services they use — is essential, and without it nothing gets better. 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. Firefox 3 is an incredibly great browser," Lilly added.

Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 / 2.0.0.12 is available for download here.
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is up for grabs here.

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