Study Finds Firefox Users Safest, IE Users Unsafe
Mozilla Firefox users are the safest Web surfers on the Internet, according to a study by The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Google and IBM's Internet Security Services. According to the study Firefox users were the most likely to use an updated version of their browser.
Researchers determined Firefox users are by far the safest Web surfers on the Web during an 18-month study. The study based its conclusions of safety on how often users of different browsers updated to the most recent version of browser software. Much of the credit to Firefox's safety ranking stems from its ease of self updating by the software. Unlike IE which has to update via Windows Update, Firefox has a self-contained updating mechanism which translates into Mozilla users being far more likely to have the most up-to-date (and safest) version of their browser.
According to the study titled "Understanding the Web browser threat: Examination of vulnerable online Web browser populations and the 'insecurity iceberg,'" 83 percent of Firefox users had the most recent version. Next, Safari users (65 percent) were likely to use the latest version of the browser. The study concluded that only 48 percent of IE users were surfing the Internet with the most recent version of IE.
Of course Firefox has not been immune to security flaws. Just hours after the most recent Firefox release last month, researchers discovered an undisclosed security flaw. Despite this difficulty, however, Mozilla's browser has been increasing in popularity with a current market share hovering around 19 percent.
The study comes out on the heels of a warning from US-CERT that Internet Explorer, the most widely used browser, has some serious security flaws that can leave you vulnerable to malicious browser attacks. The security hole found by researchers report the IE flaw affects three versions of Internet Explorer: IE6, IE7 and IE8, beta 1.
Microsoft is still at a loss to fix the problem, because unlike most malicious software the zero-day flaw allows code to be embedded into the user's operating system and shows no signs of any unusual activity, at least by current modes of malware detection.
Last week, Microsoft unveiled a part of its new security apparatus which could help combat the new threat, but it's only available for IE8, beta 2 which comes out in August. The new IE8 will cross reference Web sites with a 'blacklist' on Microsoft's servers and will prevent a user from visiting any unauthorized sites. However, unlike Firefox which updates its 'blacklist' several times a day and keeps a list of potential threats on the user's computer, IE8 beta 2 will check with Microsoft's servers every time it opens up a new page.
We will have to wait and see if Microsoft's plan to deliver real-time threat information to IE8 will make the browser safer or just slower.
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IE is garbage, I abandoned it 3 years ago and will probably never go back.
http://thegooglehouse.blogspot.com
I'll take IE over Firefox ANY time! I'm STILL using IE6 and can't imagine using, nor do I WANT to use, any other browser! Firefox SUCKS!!
You tell 'im, Linda ;)....
I use both of them... they're both good, and saying one's users are 'better' than another's is just more foolish "my dog's better than your dog". Hooray for Firefox updates... -after- they finally made it self updating. I wish people and the media could learn to enjoy life without denigrating others. Everytime a new feature is implemented, there's a media 'contest' for what, or who, is "better".
The media should just report the stats... and leave off the 'better' opinions.
i agree with RDunn, none of these programs are perfect, thy hav their strengths and weaknesses,
Good job missing the point of the article, everyone.