Security researcher and blogger Joshua Long has charged Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) Mac App Store with putting the computer security of users at risk due to its slow pace of updates. Citing the example of third-party Internet browser maker Opera, Long observed how users who have downloaded Opera via the App Store will find themselves with a version released in March.

Apple requires developers to strip out any auto-update features from their software when they submit it to the Mac App Store, making Apple solely responsible for all updating. Unfortunately, this means that Apple could become a bottleneck for critical security updates; in the past, critics have accused Apple of sometimes taking weeks or months to approve new apps and app updates in its iOS App Store.

Writing on his blog, Joshua says: "Users who rely on the App Store to tell them whether their software is up-to-date may not be aware of the security risks and may continue to use an unsafe version of the Opera browser." It remains to be seen how long Apple will take to approve the new version of Opera for Mac. For now, a spokesman from Opera says the company is waiting for Apple to approve a newer version of the company's browser for the Mac App Store, while security-conscious users may want to use www.opera.com/download/ directly.

For more:
- check out this blog entry at The Joshmeister on Security
- check out this article at Computerworld

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