Is Firefox really better than IE? – Security

Ok, this is being called into question recently, now I did a bit of searching, because as a Firefox user I’d like to know how much truth there is to these reports.

Now, I’ve only looked at two reporting sources, not the original report from Secunia.
I first saw this article from LinuxInsider, then found this on Mozilla’s Security Blog.

Now feel free to draw your own conclusions, both articles raise very good points.

Will I still use firefox? Yeah, for me it’s more usable, more flexible, and nicer.  Sure it’s security is an important factor, but as has been stated on those articles and in the past, security bugs will always appear, the question is usually how quick are they patched and Mozilla does win hands down with that one.  Of course, since Microsoft don’t fully disclose their full fixes on updates (as far as I remember) you never know how many holes they are patching.

With the web  browser now becoming increasingly important and used, it’s important that security is constantly dealt with.  I trust Mozilla far more than I trust Microsoft, I know how open source works, so that’s probably why.

What browser you use, is totally your choice, and I do believe Microsoft are getting better with their patches, but still, their patch cycle (monthly) and things like that obviously cause them problems.

With Firefox I control my browsing, nothing runs without my say so, hence I know I’ll very rarely get hit by spyware.  I always remember the trouble IE used to cause (and still does) with regards to installing spyware. 

Common conversation:
Them: “My PC is really really slow”
Me: “Do you use IE?”
T: “Yeah Why?”
M: “That’ll be why.  Get some antispyware software, try and clear the rubbish off your system, and ditch IE.”
T: “But I like IE.”
M: “So do hackers.”
T: “I don’t like Firefox, It’s different to IE.”
M: “It’s not that different, here install these add-ons. *Gives list on add-ons*.  Restart it and see if that’s any better.”
T: “Ah… yeah a bit better, still prefer IE though.”

See, browser exploits come in two forms, holes in the program and holes in the way the program handles internet (website scripts and things) code.  Unfortunately even when I get people to use Firefox, they always switch back to IE.  They just don’t understand the true problem of malware.  Firefox is much better against webcode exploits, especially when I throw in something like the NoScript add-on, total script execution control.

~ by Jon on March 8, 2009.