Google (GOOG) is shaping up to be quite a competitor to once-friend Apple (AAPL). Not only is it taking on the iPhone in many ways, it's now competing with Apple's Safari web browser on the Mac computing platform.

Google Chrome, which was launched over a year ago and is seen by some as the most simplistic and fastest web browser on the planet, want to be your portal to the Internet -- by displacing Apple's own excellent Safari web browser product.

Over this weekend, Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was ripped all over by bloggers, journalists and other media pundits for giving customers of its iTunes music and video software the option of downloading its Safari web browser. For some reason, the fact that Apple was promoting its own web browser product -- not as a forced download, but as a voluntary choice -- caused some folks to really raise a stink in the press. Really, though, it's a non-issue.

You see, those folks were comparing Apple to one of the hundreds of nefarious software firms who trick the consumer into installing software without any consent or knowledge. The fact that Apple used its "Software Update" service to give its customers the ability to download its web browser product -- completely by choice -- can't be compared to secretly downloading software int he background, but that's the argument many in the tech world wanted to make.

Now, nitpickers will be arguing Apple's stance on this for a few weeks before the hubbub dies down, but really there's not an argument. Of course, there's always an argument when Apple is discussed in media circles just based on how successful the company is. I personally don't own a single Apple product, but highly admire the company's marketing prowess. Promoting its own web browser product really isn't a crime -- as other competing web browser products, I think, has found very creative ways to promote their own products for years and years.