I think Apple is right on this and I agree with you that Google and Adobe, among others, should act in similar ways. While I finish writing a full response to your article I leave you with this little charming popup:

www.microsoft.com

You should see a "modestly" intrusive dialog there. Hehehe speaking of the devil. I went in to check out something about ACLs and my oh my what did I find.

Well Joe while Apple "might" be doing wrong in distributing an app as a patch like John Lilly says, I think John is going overboard and treating users as complete idiots. If I read him right he says "don't offer this because they'll blindly download and install it and then they'll break their system". That such actions will undermine the image of software distributors. Particularly Firefox.

He fails to address the fact that the presence of Firefox on the client's computer is an indication of a "conscious" decision to move away from IE. His user base is ironically the least prone to commit the error he so much accuses Apple of leading people into. More so, and as you say, if he did use Apple's tactics his user base would be some much greater. To the point that he might have a reason to worry, but as it stands I don't believe he has.

Now to add to your post. Not only should Google and Adobe do this. They should join forces and develop a combined strategy. Microsoft already played its cards. With its release of Silverlight and its bid for Yahoo it clearly targets both Adobe and Google. Something along the lines of get the best media experience with Adobe the best web app performance with Google. Get Adobe Flash, all the Google services, download Firefox now. Create Firefox specific features. Firefox might not be the leading browser, but Google and Adobe are leaders in their field. Leverage it NOW! While you still can.

Now on the matters of "enterprise" environments. Please bear with me I'm no Windows Server expert, but I know my way around Linux servers so I'll try to work from there. On a Linux system you have ACLs (apart from file permissions). So aside from the read, write and execute permission per user, group and others you can also limit what can and can not be executed. Even if you're root (Administrator).

Now on the assumption that the average Joe or Jane Office doesn't run as admin I believe they'd have a pretty restricted set of rights as to what to execute. Thus on a properly set up Windows system rogue updates would not execute. Even if they did what they download should not be installable and even if it was the new executables should not be allowed to run. That is what ACLs are for, right? A list of what can or can not be done with a set of files (independent from the actual file permissions). Basically a file system's firewall.

Of course I'm assuming Microsoft got the idea right. Because after reading the following:

technet.microsoft.com /en-us/magazine /cc138011.aspx

"[in XP] You could give the owner permissions but if the owner changed, those permissions were not transferred. Likewise, owners always had implicit rights to an object, no matter what permissions they were assigned on that object."

Now that sounds so so soooo bad. A reader posted something bad about Linux permissions. About being limited to rwx on ugo (read, write, execute / user, group, others). At least they got that one right on Linux and when you change the owner the permissions move along to him. He doesn't get some "defaults".

Theoretically the issue you raise with rouge installs and enterprise environments should be mute. Unless of course I don't quite understand Windows ACLs and I have them over rated. Maybe Microsoft did just develop an over convoluted if then elseif statement for file security that doesn't actually work well or isn't "security wise" functional. In such a case then yes you'd have a security issue.

Joe, I almost can't believe I am say this. This is the first time you have written about Apple that I agree with you.

If Safari wasn't horrible I wouldn't have a problem with it haha.

Seriously though, I don't see a problem with update programs offering a companies programs as long as they change the name. If they made it Apple Installation program then it would not be misleading.

I find it annoying and irresponsible that Apple, Adobe, and others include extra applicatons in their installer defaults. I certainly understand their desire to impose their apps, Google toolbar, etc. on the entire world. However, as the help desk for my 83-year old father and other unsophisticated users, I most assuredly do not appreciate having to support iTunes for people who do not have iPods, or Safari for people who do not even know what it is. By making it difficult for untrained users to avoid installing unwanted applications, these users just incur support overhead for things they never would have chosen, and that they'll never use.

Silverlight, Photo Gallery, Safety Scanner, Toolbar and Writer are only updated/installed, if the user already has these products installed. They are not even offered to users if the program is not installed. "Apple includes the updater with iTunes, but it's optional. ", Apple gives you an option not to install it, but it is installed by default. I had several customer complain that Apple's new browser installed on its own, and I tested here as well in a Virtual Enviroment (Since I would never install Apple's Crappy software), and Safari installed without user action.

I find this followup post hilarious in its own right. For you to call out the Firefox/Mozilla guy as "getting his facts wrong" is splitting hairs in the worst way. I've see more than my fair share of machines with iTunes installed and I can't remember the last time that I managed to find someone who had bothered to uninstall or decline installation of the Apple "updater". If you're going to point out the fact that apple update is optional ... I'm going to point out the fact that all users could customize windows update so that it notifies them of updates and gives them the choice of which programs they would like to install ... or disable it completely if they would like. So from my perspective, Apple and Microsoft are absolutely no different in this regard.

I can tell you that those users I support at work are the kind who install iTunes (or anything else for that matter) by clicking the Next button 15 times over followed by the finish button (and rebooting if necessary.

On one hand, Microsoft deserves to be smacked just as much as the others. Windows Update absolutely offers up Silverlight (and other potentially unwanted software) as optional downloads that can easily be installed by people who have no idea what they are installing. However, Microsoft provides IT professionals with managed networks with the choice to use WSUS instead, so that updates are approved and this kind of random install doesn't happen.

I don't see Adobe or Google or Apple making any attempt to offer this same kind of manageability or even a high trust effort to clearly explain what is being installed to users who may not understand. Instead, I either need to restrict new software installs completely (so that iTunes needs to be manually installed by our support desk) or have people run around uninstalling the Google toolbar and Safari from PCs where they really shouldn't have been installed in the first place.

To suggest, however that Apple is 'all good' because the thing can be uninstalled is just ridiculous, though. If I uninstall it, the optional crap goes away ... but so do legitimate security and feature enhancements for iTunes.

As others have pointed out offering new software is fine. It's them making it a default that is the problem.

Every new application increases the attack surface of your machine and means you now have to stay up to date on all patches for that new software. Browsers especially are prime targets for hackers and installing them should be a very conscious act.

Apple is more than ripe.

Try and find the link to install Quicktime WITHOUT iTunes. Yes, it can be done, but you have to read that web page pretty carefully for the small print with the small print link to get Quicktime only. I don't have an iPod, and I really don't care to use iTunes.

Same thing when I tried the beta of Safari, I was constantly asked to install iTunes. DO. NOT. WANT.

Apple is the only company that I have actually used a pirated copy, not because I wanted the additional capabilities, but to get their software to shut up from asking me every blessed time I started it if I wanted to upgrade! No aske me once, let me tick this because I'm not interested, and go away. Bring it up every single time. Are we going to get the same thing when Apples decides to offer a Safarie Pro?

But that was before I found out about Quicktime Alternative, so I don't even install it anymore. Sorry, it doesn't pass my smell test.

After the install, does it make Safari the default HTML handler? If it does, then that's really way past the freshness date on that fruit.

I think you are totally wrong about this Joe. The fact is, when I use windows update, without even looking I can update using express settings and it won't install anything new. The live products you listed aren't checked off to be installed and you must go into custom updates to get them. Apple is way off the mark with this. I probably would have installed the update without bothering to look at it too because it describes itself as an "update" not new installation. For these reasons I have completely gotten rid of Apple Update. Fuck em. Btw I did check out Safari and its completely overrated in features and usability and only slight faster than Firefox 3. Therefore Firefox is the winner. You should do a post about how Safari's in Apple's reality distortion field.

IE 7 auto installed on my laptop and brought it to a slow crawl. I had to reinstall XP. It was installed on a critical update without my knowledge. Worse yet. IE 7 was not compatible with a medical image browser and many of us were not able to take call and IT finally sent out an IE 7 blocker. Silverlight is not installed on my computer and is always on an update list, optional but still there. Before I knew what I was doing, I used install the optional MS updates as well. If you do not want Safari, uncheck the box when prompted, doofus. At least Apple didn't ram it down your throat as they did with IE 7. BTW, go ahead and try and remove it. At least you can remove or just not use Safari. Besides, who does?

Joe, You have to be kidding
If every company did this, where would it leave the user. Bombarded.
Let alone the opportunity for virus to be installed on the unexpected user.
G

"If every company did this, where would it leave the user."

Perhaps, clamoring for Ubuntu?

@Bill:

You have to blame your IT staff for that one.. MS made it extremely clear that it was going to auto install if you didn't block it through GPO and they made everything needed to accomplish this available. If anything that is a case of how MS did things right

Should Microsoft Throw Away Vista?

http://advice.cio.com/laurianne_mclaughlin/should_microsoft_throw_away_vista

Quotes from the above link;

"Throw Vista away. That's what my colleagues at our fellow IDG publication InfoWorld have now argued that Microsoft should do. Give it a dignified resting place, as a stepping-stone OS, and come up with a replacement that's more sensible for enterprise IT. There is historical precedent in the consumer OS space for such a move; look at Windows ME and how it became a footnote in Microsoft history.

"Microsoft should toss Vista in the trash, as the company did with Windows Millennium eight years ago, then issue a Windows XP Second Edition (as it did with Windows 98 eight years ago) that capitalizes on some of Vista's key benefits. Then the company should focus on Windows 7, rather than keep trying to push Vista down unwilling customers' throats. If that's too radical, how about doing an XP Second Edition while also continuing to rework Vista?" writes InfoWorld executive editor Galen Gruman, who created a petition that 100,000 people have now signed asking Microsoft to save Windows XP.

Bold ideas. But I have a feeling that some of you nodded your heads in agreement as you read them. As CIO has reported previously, many enterprise IT shops are holding out on Vista. CIOs in mid-market companies, in particular, often have aging hardware that would not play nicely with Vista, and can't afford a large-scale hardware refresh just for the OS. Also, they don’t want to deal with or pay for the necessary end-user training for Vista.

Or, consider how another reader of that same blog post explained why he was waiting on Vista: "Vista upgrade is not an upgrade, but wholesale replacement. The processor and memory requirements will give every CIO pause (just to keep performance level with existing levels), not to mention researching how many peripherals have to be replaced as well due to incompatibility issues. Vista will force many CIOs to consider Linux and Mac alternatives due to cost and compatibility issues in order to stay in budget...anyone remember Windows ME... it looks downright inviting in comparison."

Joe wrote
"Windows is the biggest software distribution mechanism on the planet..."
Joe you are absolutely wrong. The context by which windows update works in installing new applications is totally different. It is essentially a download, as you would download any application from the internet by clicking on a hyperlink. Windows automatic update DOES NOT install new applications and the whole concept is very different from what Apple does. So, if you find what Apple does acceptable, imangine what Microsoft can do, if it wishes to exploit similar update mechanisms. With a small configuration change on Windows Update, Microsoft can push loads of software in your PC. Actually, if people accept this as legitimate, Microsoft would never be happier...

If you think what Apple did is brilliant you wouldn't mind if every company that has a piece of software in your PC to do the same thing.

In my PC Apple doesn't get to do what it wants, I already blocked it's updater and various services that int installs. (the same thing goes for producs from other companies).

Our PCs are called personal and not public for a darn good reason, they are ours, our property not Apple's.

Apple needs to learn some respect.

Jesse, you are clearly wrong. I know of no average user that was warned. The small IT departments of many companies had no idea. How was this knowledge sent to the public? If it was, MS did a piss poor job of communicating the warning. IE 7 should not have been an automatic critical update, and it hurt innumerable older computers. I know because my friends asked me to help them. I and all of my group and friends, shut off MS auto updates, and now we get nagged all day long about it. At least you are given a choice to install Safari, and it is probably pretty darn easy to remove, as well as not be used at all. We can debate Yahoo and Google tool bars later. I noticed then installed on my of 3 computers by my 6 and 7 yr old kids, installed with plug-ins for games. They just clicked "OK' because the 6 yr old are just learning how to read. Lame! Of course, IE 7 works pretty good on modern computers and Vista, but It was wrong to roll it out to the 'trusting' public in that manner, and I certainly will not blame a darn good hard working IT team of 3 people, working on numerous apps and integration for 'trusting' MS. BTW, the IE 7 blocker from MS did not work on many computers, so all the warning in the world could not have helped.

Not a day goes by without some annoy-o-ware telling me I need to update. Apple Updater, Adobe Updater, Java Updater, Steam, Nero, whatever.

The one that actually annoys me the least is Windows Update! That's usually only once a month (patch Tuesday), and automatic in the middle of the night. Adobe, Apple and Java annoy me with an update on every minor point release instead of just installing it. That's because they want to get the name of their company in your face with these stupid update programs.

Frankly, I think this strategy backfires. Eventually, when people get new machines, they think "Gee, do I want to install Java? Isn't Java that thing that annoyed me with updates and offers for OpenOffice every goddamn week? Well no. No, I won't install Java."

So, Joe, if you want that instead of just downloading what you need the old fashioned way, have fun with it. IMO these companies are shooting themselves in the foot with these obsessive updaters.

"Apple's Safari distribution tactic is sheer brilliance. Apple is co-opting Microsoft's monopoly product. Other developers shipping updaters should follow Apple's approach."

Joe, the point that seems to elude you completely is that Apple has a virtual monopoly with iPod/iTunes. So putting aside the questionable logic of trying to force Safari on existing iTunes users whether they want it or not (just like they do with Quicktime), and the customer nightmare that would occur if everyone else (Adobe, etc) decided to pull the same stunt, it's a pretty stupid tactic legally in the post MSFT anti-trust, EU Commission enforcement era.

ANY pre-checked unrelated software download is Rotten.

It should be opt-in, not opt-out.

Joe - it seems your site is receiving a much larger audience lately. I say that because of the number of comments being left as compared to days past. Many more comments per article.

Why would that be happening? It's not so much more comments as it is many more replies to comments. I think if you were to read through all these comments, you'll find a colony of new pro-Microsoft "inspired" posters.

Anyone who's heard a fat lady actually sing knows there is a crescendo ahead. It always comes after the long part where the orchestra does all the work. That's what an opera is.

The entire server/client relationship is weak and dangerous when you don't have the security that will allow you to trust machines to interoperate without human involvement.

Microsoft can't provide sufficient security for the server to client interaction. How ungodly awful would Microsoft products operate in the client to server interaction where the damage a malicious code can do is no longer limited to the local machine but is set loose on the entire world.

What's it going to be, Ozzie? Will you swim in the moat? Or will you row your boat to shore? (Hallelujah.)

Maybe now we can all sing Kumbaya and get on with the camping.

What Apple is doing is not much different than anything most commercial software companies are doing with all their auto updates. Heck, MS is the worst possible offender with their "stealth updates."

Two things you can do, first,if you have any Windows tech ability, get a good firewall (ZA is not bad). The problems with the built in XP firewall is it only basically stops traffic one way. With a better firewall you can deny a 3rd party program access to the internet, and the updates.

Second, either run msconfig from the "run box" (command line) and stop the auto updates of some programs. Whoops, that run command is the same thing as people are discussing about the command line in linux, isn't it? One improvement over msconfig is to install a 3rd party program that does basically the same thing but a little better, without using the run box/command line program msconfig. I highly recomment the free programs by Mike Lin (startupCPL) ;

http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

with that it places an icon in your comtrol panel that allows you to uncheck with programs run at startup, like msconfig does, but better. These programs are also robbing your XP system of resources and slowing it down as well. It seems every software programmer out there thinks their software is great and needs to be added to the start menu to be memory resident. Very few do, and this can slow down a powerful machine with a few of this memory hogs running all the time.

While your at Mike's page, take a look at Startupmonitor, another free program, it has been around quite awhile, and does a lot of what UAC does in Vista, for previous versions of Windows.
And it might save you $399 instead of buying the "train wreck," Vi$ta Ultimate.

Just because Microsoft is doing something doesn't make it right! Quite the opposite!

JOE.

YOU ARE AN IDIOT!!!

Apple is getting so ready to kick some serious MS ass.

All that really has to happen is a contract to sell the real OS X to the IT community, and to all wintards for the low, low price of $129. Then, it's goodbye Microsoft, because your products suck out-loud and have always been horrible rip offs of Apple stuff in the kindest assessment possible.

Then again, isn't browser share actually more important than OS share these days?

Apple is seriously on target, and I think it shows by the amount of kevetching all the Windows Zealots are showing lately!

Thank you Joe Wilcox. You wouldn't remember this, but I sent you an angry email about your anti apple arguments in the past, but I love your point of view on this article. I would also say that this is the best article of yours I have ever read.

You guys have to be kidding. I have checked on both a XP machine and on Vista. There are no live services offered at all (Live Photo, Live Mail, etc), and there is no Silverlight offered as well. These 2 services are ONLY offered when you have the program installed. This is very different then what Apple is doing with Safari.

JoeM, your experience is different from ours. I do not have Silverlight or the Live apps installed, but they DO show up in Windows update. Sorry, but you are wrong. Your computer must be unique.

Fight with with Fire

As long as the US DoJ isn't going to stop Microsoft from monopolistic tying and profiting from its network effects, then Apple has no choice but to engage in similar though less onerous tactics. I only run Windows in a VM on my Macs anyway so I really don't care much anyway. I hope there comes a day when I only need my VM to run Linux to test server-side apps and to run Windows only to test browsers and cross-platform apps in Adobe AIR. It's getting close. Nerdvana.

Woe to thee.

Pandora's box has been opened. Now all will be less secure.

Future updates of Office will have all kinds of new goodies.

A truly classless act, worthy of Microsoft themselves.

1. Those that say Safari was installed without any user action are lying or had their eyes closed when clicking around.

2. Safari is a web browser, and a very good one (anyone that says otherwise hasn't really used it). Users would be wise to give it a fair try.

3. Apple has every right to offer up their own software through their own Update mechanism. It's a computer updater, not just an installed-software-updater. This definition seems to get lost on some people.

I have no problem with what Apple has done, and over time, as Safari adoption increases, the computer world will be a better, more balanced playing field. This is clearly good for everyone.

Please forgive my bluntness, but there's a whole lotta people here talking out of their asses -- Joe included. I dearly hope you knuckleheads are not writing software. For those of us who actually put some thought into designing proper, well-behaved software, there's something called the principle of least surprise. It generally means that software should function the way a typical user would expect. In this case, that means if you install a piece of software and a bundled software updater, the bundled software updater should update only the software it was bundled with, and nothing else. A software updater that's trying to shove new software at you, is well... a lot like adware isn't it? Or worse? Any chance that AdAware, Spybot S&D, etc. will start clobbering the Apple Software "Updater?" ;-)

Some of you suggesting that nobody should have a problem with this obnoxious move sound a lot like the people saying "oh big deal. just hit the delete button!" when we first started seeing spam volumes ramp up in the late 90's. Then as now, you need to ask yourself "how does this scale?" What happens when every software company starts doing this? And how many hours do you want to spend helping your non-techie friends and relatives uninstall software (or troubleshoot problems caused by software) they had no idea they were installing in the first place? JohnJ hit it right on the head. Apple could've prevented most of the protests and still satisfied their urge to shove Safari at us by using the updater to offer Safari, but simply leaving the box unchecked, instead of having it install by default. Having an "updater" install unrelated software packages by default is evil. Perhaps mildly evil and Microsoft has done worse, but this is still evil all the same. An updater is supposed to update existing software. Period. If they want to continue this, then they need to change the name. Call it Apple Product Delivery Tool, or somesuch...

As far as Apple's software offerings, I've used iTunes and Quicktime on the Windows platform extensively. iTunes actually isn't too bad. The most annoying part about iTunes to me is its constant need for updates. On the other hand, Quicktime really leaves a lot to be desired. Similar to what Bryan Price mentioned, I used a keygen just to silence the incessant pestering to upgrade to QT Pro. Talk about nagware! And if that's not bad enough... qttask.exe... Just what I needed, more unnecessary crap in my systray that I have to disable again after each and every weekly update. I'm no fan of Microsoft (Linux/Unix snob) but Windoze Media Player is so much more usable than QT, it's not even funny. Maybe the codecs are decent and QT provides a cross-platform advantage, but the QT interface, well... it just sucks. I'll have to check out QT Alternative -- thanks for the tip.

If this is supposed to be an example of "think different", someone at Apple (probably in marketing), seems to have overlooked the "think" part.

My $0.02...

-cw-