More Apple nonsense

I wrote before (as have many others) about how Apple sneakily got Windows users to install its Safari browser by slipping it in with other software upgrades. I was reminded how careful you have to be when installing anything from Apple.

I reinstalled Quicktime the other day, which seems pretty straightforward. I’m glad I chose to configure the installation manually — or as manually as possible — because that at least saved me some trouble. Users who choose the default, though, are at Apple’s mercy.

Just about every piece of software I’ve ever installed, including freeware and open-source stuff, asks where I’d like the shortcuts put — on the desktop, the Start menu, or the Quick Launch bar. Not Apple; it puts Quicktime wherever it wants, leaving me to remove it.

(Why I would possibly want it on my Quick Launch bar I can’t fathom. It opens automatically when it needs to play a file. I don’t think I’ve ever manually launched Quicktime. But that’s Apple logic.)

Today I began having trouble viewing some images in Firefox. I had right-clicked and chosen “View Image,” but instead of showing the pic, the screen started to flicker.

I dug and discovered the problem. Quicktime had set itself as the default viewer for PNG files in Firefox without my permission. But it had screwed up and for some reason created two entries in Firefox for PNG, both pointing to Quicktime. For some reason, that was causing an endless loop and the image wasn’t displaying.

I switched both entries back where they belonged — where they had been before Quicktime screwed with them — and all was well again. (Except that now I have two entries for PNG in Firefox.)

So, Apple, I realize that you expect your customers to trust you implicitly and that you think you know what’s best for everyone, but guess what? You don’t. Please stop messing with my settings without asking.