Installing Safari on Windows is Illegal
Why anybody would want to install Safari (Apple’s web-browser, much like Internet Explorer is Microsoft’s) on a Windows PC is beyond me. Safari sucks even more than IE.
However, The Register has reported today that the End User Licence Agreement (EULA) for Safari has a clause forbidding the installation on Windows:
As spotted by our Italian friends at setteB.IT, Apple’s Safari license says that users are permitted to install the browser on no more than “a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.” This means that if you install Safari for Windows on a Windows PC, you’re violating the license.
The problem? You’d think there wasn’t one right? Well, apparently the Safari browser is being pushed out as part of the Apple Updater which you’ll see if you use iTunes.
Early last week, as Apple unveiled Safari version 3.1, it began offering the browser to Windows users via the Apple Software Update tool that accompanies iTunes and Quicktime. In other words, millions of people who don’t use Safari have now been confronted with a pop-up window that lists the browser as an important software “update.”
And this is an offer that many iTunes and Quicktime users are less than likely to refuse. When that pop-up window pops up, the go-ahead-and-install-Safari button is checked by default.
So, if you use iTunes and you see the Apple Updater service, make sure you inspect it carefully and untick Safari if it’s there.
Then dump Internet Explorer 6 and 7. You can’t uninstall them as Microsoft uses sections of them for shared functionality, just stop using them.
Then go get Firefox. It’s secure, standards compliant and extendable for functionality, unlike Safari or IE.


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March 27th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Safari surely does suck on Windows - but on OS X it’s another story. After using Firefox and Flock for some time, I’ve gone back to Safari because it is so much faster (and, I think, better). Sure it has some niggles that will not be to everyone’s taste, but that’s browsers for you.
March 27th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
I meant to leave a note at the bottom of the post saying that even the Mac users I know are using FF on their systems. You had to be the exception to the rule!
You lucky bugger. I wish I had the option to use FF or Safari on a Mac…
March 28th, 2008 at 10:37 am
In a shock move IE8 is going to be standards based by default. MS in friendly to Web developers shocker?