Apple may have started the latest round of this. But Microsoft was aggressively pushing their browser clear back in the 90s, and I don't think Apple was.
Well Safari did not exist in the 90s but Apple was bundling Safari with iTunes back in the days (https://www.cnet.com/culture/apple-pushes-safari-on-windows-...). It was auto-selected, so people who quickly click on 'Ok' for updating iTunes would find themselves downloading an extra 20+mb and installing a browser they did not want.
