Firefox VS IE: "Weeeeeeeeeeee!"

Well...IE's been trampled on because it's a Microsoft product and the victim of most exploits...
that's what happens when you're the king of the block...

we will never know if it is really less secure than other browsers until Firefox or something else becomes the new king on the block...

if Firefox ever gets a 50%+ market share and becomes the new target of malicious code we'll see if it's still as secure as it seems now...

I use Firefox myself...but...I don't use it because I think it's more secure...I use it because it's less of a target and has better features...until something better comes along.

Eg ;)
 
I use internet Explorer 7 because i am used to Internet Explorer, dont really like how FireFox is set out, Internet Explorer 7 looks alot better, i have never had any problems with it, no seciruty problems too.

IE = Under rated
FireFox = Over Rated
 
Firefox has already been 0wn3d several times before. I have tried to love Firefox, i've tried to make it work, but I always go back to Opera. :)

Internet Explorer will always suck
 
Willz said:
IE = Under rated
FireFox = Over Rated
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Hahaha, that's funny to see. The reason most people use IE is because it ships with Windows, and for no other reason than that. It has the most exploits of any browser because it is badly written, not because it is the oldest (hint: it isn't) or most popular. Even today, most of the vulnerabilities in IE which are "fixed" are simply turned off in the registry by disabling the vulnerable feature. If the feature is re-enabled, vulnerability comes back! Also, even with all of it's flaws, FF will never be as insecure as IE, because it is not tied into the OS. To this day, I have never seen somebody's rig exploited through a flaw in Firefox. Not to imply it isn't possible, but saying that IE is >= Firefox in terms of security is laughable.

Many people don't like IE because MS is using it to skew (read: BREAK) web standards for everybody. Who wants pages to render differently in one browser than another? Nobody else but Microsoft. If you don't believe me, IE7 claims to be CSS 2 compliant. There is a test to prove this. First open this link in Opera9, a standards compliant browser. Then open it again in IE7 and see if the results are similar. It doesn't render correctly in FF yet, but FF has rendered CSS much better than IE for a very long time now, and they are working on implementing full CSS2 support. MS has no such plans for IE, they've already stated this.

P.S. - It renders 100% correctly in Konqueror and Safari as well.

megamaced said:
Internet Explorer will always suck
Click to expand...
Yes. :)
 
Firefox is better at fixing whatever holes it has before they become a real problem...
but...again...that's mainly due to the fact they aren't targeted like IE is.

Opera is in the same boat Firefox was a few years ago...it's security is mostly dependant upon the fact most people can't be bothered writing malicious code for something so small...not enough prestige in it.
 
Anti-Trend said:
There is a test to prove this. First open this link in Opera9, a standards compliant browser. Then open it again in IE7 and see if the results are similar.
Click to expand...

Firefox doesn't display it correctly either :confused: Suprises me considering it's an open source browser.

Works in Konqueror :)
 
How is it supposed ot be displayed, can someone post a comparison of it with IE7 or IE, FireFox and Opera9?
 
It has the most exploits of any browser because it is badly written, not because it is the oldest or most popular. Even today, most of the vulnerabilities which are "fixed" are simply turned off in the registry by disabling the vulnerable feature. If the feature is re-enabled, vulnerability comes back!
Click to expand...

Of course AT the holes must exist to be found...malicious coders don't create holes they take advantage of them...but...
if their attention ever gets directed at the other browsers I'm sure they'd find their fair share of vunerabilities with them also. ;)

I read IE bashing all the time...and I'm not convinced it's any worse than any other browser...because the others haven't had that kind of attention yet.
 
Egaladeist said:
I read IE bashing all the time...and I'm not convinced it's any worse than any other browser...because the others haven't had that kind of attention yet.
Click to expand...
I hear this all the time, always in defense of MS products for some reason. :) But there are a lot of products which have done the same things and for longer, and MS is not famous for their insecurity for no reason. As I stated earlier:
...FF will never be as insecure as IE, because it is not tied into the OS. To this day, I have never seen somebody's rig exploited through a flaw in Firefox. Not to imply it isn't possible, but saying that IE is >= Firefox in terms of security is laughable.
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Firefox has some problems because it is based on the old Mozilla core, and that browser was retired for good reason. The Mozilla rendering engine is probably better now than it ever has been, largely because it has received so much attention lately, not the opposite, as you imply. Normally more attention brings flaws to the surface quickly; if the developer is good, the problems get corrected quickly and the software gets better. This has not been the case with IE.

Opera is a totally different ballgame. The singe, central product of Opera is their web browser, and as such, under the hood it is written extremely well. Per capita, it has the lowest amout of bugs in any browser (except perhaps Konqueror, which is a central part of KDE for *nix). Better written code yields less bugs and therefore less vulnerabilities.
 
Man i love Opera 9, dont know what posses people to use Internet explorer :\

Even HWF is displayed different in parts.

I've just been transformed.

Still think Internet Explorer is underrated tho.
 
Trying to get cross-browser compatible sites can be a nightmare with CSS.
There are ways to make them cross compatible, like using certain code to include one stylesheet if the browser is IE and a different one for FF, and another different one for Opera etc. But that's hassle a designer shouldn't have to go through.
 
Hummmmmmmmmmmmmm...I took a look around to see if I could find a list of IE and Firefox vunerabilities for the year 2005...couldn't find any...be interested to see though how many bugs to make a comparison.
 
Actually that was a very good set-up AT...

The most popular browsers on the web are:
July 2006
1. Microsoft IE ...83.05%
2. Mozilla Firefox ...12.93%
3. Apple Safari ...1.84%
4. Opera ...1.00%

using your charts...

vunerabilities from 2003-2006...

1. Microsoft IE ...88
2. Mozilla Firefox ...35
3. Apple Safari ...5
4. Opera ...15

this would actually indicate a direct relation to popularity...market share...i'm not saying that it's not coincidence...just that the relation is there. ;)

I'd like to see ultimately an even playing field test...if these 4 equally had 25% of the market...we could then say....this is a fair test result...but...
we can't really have a fair test when one browser has 83% and another only 1%...and say this one is safer.
 
Jesus christ, that large part of orange on safai 2.x, now thats the worst by looks of it!
 
Do you have the stats on Apache vs Windows servers?

If Apache has fewer vunerabilities then I would absolutely agree it's because it's a more secure server.

As an example...

if there are ten robberies in a week...

if there are 100 homes on a block and 83% of them use one kind of lock...and the rest use a different lock...and 9 robberies happen to the 83%...that does not indicate that the other 17% are using a more secure lock...the odds are that the 83% are going to suffer the most break-ins.

but...

if there are 100 homes on a block and 60% of them use one kind of lock...and the rest use a different lock...and 9 robberies happen to the other 40%...that would indicate that the other 60% are using a more secure lock...as the odds would be that the 60% should have suffer more break-ins.

Eg ;)

I'm just being the Devil's Advocate here...I use Firefox myself...there are two problems with IE that will never affect Firefox, at least not to any degree...

1. size
the bigger the application the better the chance of having problems...Firefox is 5MB...IE service pk 1 alone could be as high as 77MB...it's simply too big.

2. other technologies
most of IE's worst problems are a result of it's association with VBScript, ActiveX, and Microsoft's Java VM...if you didn't have those or replaced them with more secure counterparts...you'd cut the problems by more than half.
 
Here are your statistics:



You are stating that the market share dictates the amount of vulnerabilities discovered. If we were to shift the terms of your argument from software to fences, you might say the following:

"Chain link fences are preferred 10 to 1 over razorwire fences. There are 800% more cases of properties being vandelized when they had a chain-link fence than razorwire, therefore the higher the marketshare, the less secure something becomes."

It is a flawed perspective. All software is NOT created equal. Part of the benefit of open-source software like Firefox or Apache is that the codebase has huge exposure, regardless of the market share. As such, problems are identified and fixed quickly. That aside, software which is written well will inherently have less bugs, and therefore less vulnerabilities. I don't see what is so difficult about this concept to grasp.
 
I agree...did you see my edit^...of course my analogy is flawed...it was merely to point out the difference between what we know and what we think we know...

we think Firefox and Opera are more secure...and they are...but I doubt by as much as we think they are...they really haven't been tested through the wringer...they haven't had to walk on fire yet.
 
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