Believe it or not, there are other search engines besides Google. Some are pretty damn good. Why can’t we have a choice? I know what you mac-nuts are saying right now, “Because Steve Jobs is so much better at making major life decisions for us.”
Safari’s search box is Google only unless you want to get into hacking Safari’s core files which is probably a violation of some Apple licensing agreement that you never read. Hacking core files will probably send bells and whistles off at the infamous Apple pitbull lawyer offices and surely void just about every warranty Apple upsold you at purchase. There are a few third party apps that allow a user to add alternate search engines to the Safari search box. Some cost money and some don’t, but why doesn’t Safari come with the option?
As with most software, the further you get away from money grubbing corporate software, the better off you are. Firefox has the ability to customize your search box choices. Firefox makes plenty of money from Google, they even load a Google search box as the primary start page for most versions of Firefox. Still, they have no problem letting you cut into their Google profits and switch out your Google search box.
Why not Safari? Does Apple really need Google cash that badly?
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What I find strange about this is that Microsoft would be sued for anti trust for doing this. Google sued MS and foced MS to change IE7 & Vista to allow users to choose their default search options.
Now why are Apple getting away with it? Come on MS get your lawyers out!
Danny on July 6th, 2007 at 12:08 pm | Link
I agree that this should have been fixed long ago, and with the passing of 10.5.2 leaving this fix out, makes me wonder how the browser developers could have missed this. I can only believe they are aware of it and are in the process of changing it. I also agree that this is illegal and Apple is aware of this offense. As to when Google realizes what their affiliate is doing and stops this, or Apple does it on their own will apparently not be done sooner than later. In the mean time I may try scripting alltheweb in place of Google so that I may try other companies and either realize that either Google is superior and stay or perhaps change to another by changing my browser to Firefox just because this little bit of sneakyness on Apple’s part has pissed me off enough to stop using their browser.
Luke Wieler on February 22nd, 2008 at 9:11 am | Link
my imac display has some problem
sathyamoorthy chidambaram on August 13th, 2008 at 2:57 am | Link