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.

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on Sep 18, 2005

I mostly use IE, sometimes Firefox and Opera. depends on what I'm doing. Yesterday I ran Spybot and Ad-Aware and both came up clean, and that's after a week of browsing. I do have MS Antispyware and Spybot-SD running in the background though.

All browsers have vulnerabilities. The more popular the browser the more vulnerabilities and criticism it will attract.  Firefox has it's share of zealots in much the same way the Mac does, perhaps it's the underdog insecurity psychology at the root -dunno. To hate something (like IE) is not productive. Both do a job, personal choice is down to you

 

on Sep 18, 2005
Interesting counterpoint:http://yahoolian.dyndns.ws:3000/articles/2005/09/17/firefox-vs-ie-security
Compare the Secunia advisories:
IE: http://secunia.com/product/11/
FF: http://secunia.com/product/4227/

I don't consider myself a Firefox "Fan-Boy" I personally couldn't care less what browser someone uses (unless it's one of the people who's PCs I am constantly having to clean up .)
I do, however, hate seeing mis-information passed off on the public by some guy (George Ou at ZD.net, not Phoon) who just wants to boost his readership by posting a provocative title, followed by a poorly researched "article."
on Sep 19, 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.


This is the main reason I stay with FF.. this and tabs of course. My spyware scans have come up 100% clean ever single time with FF. Not at all the case with IE. It was a significant amount found on every scan with IE. Other than those two things, I don't have a problem with IE. I just prefer FF.
on Sep 19, 2005
Andrew Kantor writes "What is wrong with Mac users and Apple fans? I mean that -- I've never seen the like. Calling them "blind lemmings" doesn't always seem strong enough."


Seems to fit for Firefox too... but I degress...

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*.


And there is your real answer.


I don't like IE, but I keep it becuase, basically, you have too.

On any browser, all you really have to do is browse safely, and keep your computer clean. Do that and you can run any browser you want to.

I can't do without tabbed browsing, my firefox scripts, and other cool add ons that i can just as easily take off without being a uninstall (like IE).


I wish I downloaded Opera for free when they had it. I want to test my website on it (and the trial version annoys me lol).
on Sep 19, 2005
New browser is out:
http://digg.com/software/A_New_Web_Browser_is_Coming_to_Town

From Digg.
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