The latest usage statistics released by Net Applications show rapid growth for Safari 3.1 in the Windows browser market. 0.21% for the month of April may seem like a small number, but it dwarfs the 0.07% peak that version 3.0 had reached despite being on the market for almost a full calendar year. 3.1, which was made available to Windows users less than 2 months ago, has been a source of controversy since its release. Apple's questionable practice of including a new installation of Safari 3.1 for Windows as part of its Software Update mechanism apparently fooled a lot of folks into installing the browser without actually realizing it. Couldn't it be possible that Windows users have all of a sudden caught on to how great Safari is? Perhaps, but to triple its previous market share high in such a short period seems a bit far-fetched. It looks like Apple's "forceful push" of the browser did the trick. It will be interesting to see which way the numbers head over the next few months. Stay tuned...