Safari for Windows, 0day exploit in 2 hours
Source: Larholm.com
Techmeme Freakout
Source: Techmeme
Beta Defined
Wikipedia, “Beta”
Wikipedia, “Software Testing”
I’ll be back with a 2nd Brief later today.
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June 12th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Beta doesn’t really mean the same thing these days as it did even a few years ago and companies know this and should take more responsibility. Companies like google and their eternal “beta” products like gmail have reinvented what a beta product is. I’m sure you see more and more companies bringing out their “beta” products and in a way it’s a great idea for them. Bring out a product, call it beta, if it works you’re praised, if it doesn’t then it’s in beta so they can’t really say anything. In apple’s case, the download site for safari looks clean and finished and nothing of what the beta could do to your system just telling people features and how good it is and better then other browsers…very misleading. My 2 cents
June 12th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Cali used to enjoy your podcast when it covered all tech news with equal merit. But it seems to have taken on a Apple bias. I like all gadgets I use Vista but also own an Ipod. I think the whole trend of putting down anything MS is a bad thing. And it seems to me that Steve Jobs only needs to sneeze and the Apple fans cheer.
June 12th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Cali used to enjoy your podcast when it covered all tech news with equal merit. But it seems to have taken on an Apple bias. I like all gadgets I use Vista but also own an Ipod. I think the whole trend of putting down anything MS is a bad thing. And it seems to me that Steve Jobs only needs to sneeze and the Apple fans cheer.
June 12th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Just a heads up that for the past few days, the ipod feed hasn’t worked on a Sony PSP.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Yeah, the term beta almost screams “just about ready”… gmail is the biggest culprit of all this.
I wonder how their apps service is, because I might considering switching to that if it is “out of beta” and guaranteed to have some kind of service level agreement… I just shutter at the thought of moving all my mail.. AGAIN.
While I agree that beta is beta and you should not take too much out of a first beta, Safari could have went through a smaller private beta to get some of these so call security concerns out of the way. It gives a false image of “Safari” because Apple users will think their systems is at risk now.
June 12th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
I recon you got it right – it is BETA and people who are not happy with it should go back to the official releases…
June 12th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
I want the keynote as podcast on my ipod video, have no time to sit in front of my big screen at home. That sucks. The D5 appearance is available at itunes. Why not the WWDC keynote?!
Nick
June 13th, 2007 at 12:37 am
Cali, I really like your podcast but I really don’t need you insulting my (or our) intelligence by giving me (us) a lesson on what beta software is… I can assure you that 90% of your audience knows what beta software is. However, I think all the “Apple haters” (that you felt so compelled to make a point to) are getting at is, most beta software is released in an “almost” ready to ship form. Almost all of the major bugs and issues have been fixed. But if Safari for Windows is as bad as some people say, then I would assume that it should really be in alpha stage right now. Because if it’s in beta stage (almost ready to ship) now then I’d hate to see what the final version is like…
Oh and I agree with some of the other commenter’s, tone down the Apple bias a little… you make it so obvious.
June 13th, 2007 at 2:27 am
Cali it is too bad that i guess i can be qualified as totally bias because i love my mac (hey look im using safari 3 beta now) but i really thing that most of these found “security flaws” are just really fakes. i say this because the person who says he has found some flaws has lied in the past about the apple wireless driver issues. he later said it was done with a modified mac but still did not retract what he said about it. i just think that he is anti apple in general (speaking of David Maynor for all of you who do not know of his past “exploit” that allowed him to take complete control over ANY mac because of the wifi “exploit” what turned out that he was using some 3rd party card and then turns out apple did find a issue with one of their cards that had not shipped since oct of 2003) on the other hand the only real security analist out there that i have seen actual documentation of these bugs is from Thor Larholm. but as i said i am bias i am trying safari now (on my mac and pc) but i dont see any real issues as of yet…
June 13th, 2007 at 2:50 am
Sorry, I have to echo the sentiments of earlier comments about the Apple bias – they aren’t the be-all-and-end-all of all things gadget-wise and other companies have been anouncing/releasing things as well.
On the subject of beta releases, though I do not completely agree with the definition you gave (regardless of whether it’s come from a good source, I talk from 20 years IT experience and plenty of beta testing), but Safari as it’s been released is barely an alpha. Beta products should be reasonably stable products (especially if released to the public), be feature set fixed i.e. no new functions to be added just the current ones needing some debugging, with only occasional glitches. Safari for Windows gets nowhere near that. I’ve been running nightly builds of Firefox for the last 18 months and it’s crashed on me maybe 10 times over that period (not once in the last few months) and never caused system problems or loss of data.
As I understand it, even under OSX, Safari isn’t that great with many people replacing it with Firefox/Opera/Camino/Omniweb now. I really can’t see why Apple have done this.
Have a read of this Ars review as I think it’s pretty unbiased: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070612-afirst-look-safari-3-on-windows.html
June 13th, 2007 at 4:28 am
Apple doesn’t know how to write Windows software. Microsoft had that problem with early versions of Office, then they hired actual Mac programmers and that solved the problem. Time for Apple to do the same if they want to continue to release products for Windows.
No matter what your dictionary says about Beta, it is highly irresponsible of Apple to release Safari with such fanfare if it has so many security issues already. It is one thing for video editing software or a spreadsheet to be in beta – the worst that will happen is you lose what you were working on. It is quite another with a browser that has multiple security holes, especially when released by a company that makes snarky ads about Windows machines being full of viruses. The least that Apple could do is take the link to the Windows version of Safari off their front page until these glaring holes have been dealt with.
June 13th, 2007 at 6:42 am
Ok well i have been using this safari for windows for the couple days its been out, and i dont see any security flaws, i do see however many bugs that have to be fixed to make it stable. one bug is how when you have a prompt like adding a bookmark and it asks the name and you have to clcik ok or cancel, it shut down safari…
June 13th, 2007 at 6:45 am
sry to post twice but i was reading that website and it has not freezed, locked up my system or anything like that.
and this is the first release for safari on windows, firefox has had 2 other versions to build off of so they are obviously going to have a more stable product since they already know what they are doing… this is the first time apple is putting safari on windows
June 13th, 2007 at 6:47 am
The new encoding will not work on teh PSP (Firmware 3.5). Shows video, but will not play.
June 13th, 2007 at 6:52 am
again sry for posting again, this is also a beta… expect bugs and evrything, i have played games that are in beta stage and they have more bugs then safari, it all will be fixed.. how long? who knows but it will be fixed… look at beta anyway you want to with any definition you want to but to me beta is just saying that it has lots of bugs, we know it, dont put it down yet and stop complaining because its not 100% done yet.
June 13th, 2007 at 9:33 am
So because OTHER companies have redefined “beta”, Apple is obliged to go with them? If you’re the kind of person who is afraid of possibly buggy software stick to official releases!
And to those upset about a focus on Apple news lately… it is the week before and after a Jobs keynote! Have you not been around the intertubes before?
June 14th, 2007 at 11:21 am
… for something totally non-related to the podcast topics – where did you get a Super Grover t-shirt?? That is awesome… I want one! :-) T
June 20th, 2007 at 7:48 am
@Maaz: I think that one was from 80stees.com