Apple has decided to upgrade the mechanism for Windows for distributing the latest versions of its iTunes music store and for the QuickTime video player. Apple has just confirmed that it’s going to distribute the latest version of the Safari Web browser to Windows users through Apple Software Update. This move reflects a more determined attempt on part of Apple to grab market share from Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Along with the release of Safari 3.1 this week, Apple also began offering Windows users with the option of installing the browser upgrade. New Software in Mac computers will now make it easy and convenient for users to download updates for Safari for both Mac and Windows.

While releasing Safari 3.1, Apple has claimed that its browser loads Web pages 1.9 times faster than IE 7 and 1.7 times faster than Firefox 2. One of the main enhancements in the latest version of Safari is the support for additional Web standards. Additionally, the upgrade supports CSS web fonts plus new video and audio tags in HTML 5 and also the animations created by using cascading styling sheets.