Is the Firefox honeymoon over?

Published on September 17, 2005 By Phoon In Internet

Now that Firefox has become the first viable contender to Microsoft Internet Explorer in years, its popularity has brought with it some unwanted attention. Last week's premature disclosure of a zero-day Firefox exploit came a few weeks after a zero-day exploit for Internet Explorer appeared on the Internet. Firefox not only has more vulnerabilities per month than Internet Explorer, but it is now surpassing Internet Explorer for the number of exploits available for public download in recent months.

Read the Rest Here..
Link

Comments (Page 1)

_02

on Sep 17, 2005

Wow!! Thanks for the heads up. I use both. I bet this isn't going to sit well with all those who have bad mouthed IE.

Phoon

on Sep 17, 2005

Yeah, they just don't want to listen when you tell them that the more popular something becomes that it also becomes a target.

Lantec

on Sep 17, 2005

I tried it for a few months back when it went to ver 1. I got to where I couldn't give up the tabbed interface. The problem was dealing with MS you either run IE or you don't get your downloads. I found that Maxthon "fools" the MS sites so I keep a copy of it on my machine and I purchased Opera 7 (now 8) because of the interface and the total customizablilty (spelling?) Firefox did it's job and showed me and many other people there's more out there than just IE. I don't see myself using IE unless they have a MAJOR update after Vista comes out.

kona0197

on Sep 17, 2005

Lantec - IE7 is supposed to be better than IE6 in features and security.

As far as this news I'm not surprised.

_02

on Sep 17, 2005

As far as this news I'm not surprised

I think you have been vindicated!!!

Lantec

on Sep 17, 2005

Kona, I was a die hard IE fan back during the duel to the death with Netscape in the early 90's I have nothing against trying IE7....after waiting for a few months while I let the rest of the world do the "shakedown cruise". Currently I'm VERY happy with Opera. It's not free, but it works just like I want it too and that's good enough for now.

Phoon

on Sep 17, 2005

I also use Maxthon. Very rarely do I fire up IE. I do keep IE set as the default browser though because I couln't get Maxthon to give it up if I set it as default.
It's been awhile since I used Opera. I just don't have issues with Maxthon/IE setup.
Tabs... couldn't live without em now..

Lantec

on Sep 17, 2005

I couln't get Maxthon to give it up if I set it as default

This is a problem I ran into with Maxthon. The only way I found to correct it was to uninstall Maxthon, then I ran Opera as the default for a couple days and reinstalled Maxthon without setting it to default.

Lotherius

on Sep 17, 2005

That report is misleading.

What it ignores is the severity of vulnerabilities, and how many remain unpatched (for how long) after being reported.

I tire of citing statistics, so I won't... Go check them yourself if it's really a concern for you. Fact is, FireFox has almost 0 of the most critical vulnerabilities unpatched, whereas IE has about 20-30 unpatched critical vulnerabilities.

The security in Firefox doesn't come from fewer flaws, it comes from the speed at which flaws are patched once they are discovered.

That means that there is almost never a chance for anyone to actually deploy exploits based on a FireFox flaw, while there are still numerous IE exploits floating around in the wild that work on a *fully patched system*.

RockinMike

on Sep 17, 2005

Personally it's all a matter of taste of which browser you want to use, so let's not start any wars here. Security flaws what a world it would be if there weren't any?

NightTrainthedark

on Sep 17, 2005

It is not misleading. It is merely saying that as Firefox becomes more popular, the exploits rise is numbers. The points you raise are good points but they refer to something different.

tjesterb

on Sep 17, 2005

Hmmm, an IE exploit gives someone access to your whole root directory and all your personal data. A FF exploit gives access to the last few sites you visited. That looks like a fair comparison to me.

An IE exploit goes months before being patched. FF exploits are sometimes fixed within 24 hours.

Yes, FF will become a bigger target as it gains more popularity. There is probably no such thing as a completely secure browser anymore. However, if you use any browser with a little intelligence, you will probably be fine.

As an aside, I run spyware scans on my machine and get nothing. I run the same scans on machines of IE users, and I always find spyware, even when for users who would never frequent "questionable" sites.

Hopefully IE7 will be all MS is promising, but MS had previously announced that they were no longer developing upgrades for IE until FF came and stole some of their marketshare. I hear they even invented something called "tabbed browsing" What will they think of next?

elessart

on Sep 17, 2005

This is what happens when you become popular...but at least Firefox 1.5 is coming out soon and the beta is out now.

kona0197

on Sep 17, 2005

As an aside, I run spyware scans on my machine and get nothing. I run the same scans on machines of IE users, and I always find spyware, even when for users who would never frequent "questionable" sites.

I rarely find anything on my scans. And everyone knows what browser I use.

starkers

on Sep 18, 2005

, I run spyware scans on my machine and get nothing. I run the same scans on machines of IE users, and I always find spyware, even when for users who would never frequent "questionable" sites.

The question is: what is the definition of a questionable site these days? In the past, it was considered to be porn sites, but given the increasing amount of unsolicited junk emanating from other, previously considered clean sites, the list of 'questionable' sites is rapidly increasing at an alarming rate. It's annoying enough that businesses sink so low to covertly install adware on unsuspecting users, but to install malware as well is completely despicable.

The other night, I downloaded 5 or 6 wallpapers (not in exe files), and a subsequent spyware scan revealed several instances of adware....worse still, 3 of malware intended to shut down antivirus and internet security programs, Windows firewall. I can only conclude these items came from a previously trusted site, as my only other d/l's were from WC or Stardock, and therefore safe.

It seems to be commonplace nowadays for smaller, honest and trustworthy operators to be taken over by large corporations that knowingly engage in the practice of covertly sending harmful crap to peoples computers...it is criminal so the seizure of assets and operators license revocation should be accompanied by a hefty prison term.

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums.
Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
It's simple, and FREE!