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Firefox Users Surf Safer
SenseOfHumor writes "According to two University of Washington Professors, Firefox users have a safer browsing experience than users of IE. These researchers sent their crawlers to 45,000 websites and studied the impact on Firefox and IE." From the article: "Levy and Gribble, along with graduate students Alexander Moshchuk and Tanya Bragin, set up IE in two configurations -- one where it behaved as if the user had given permission for all downloads, the other as if the user refused all download permission -- to track the number of successful spyware installations. During Levy's and Gribble's most recent crawl of October 2005, 1.6 percent of the domains infected the first IE configuration, the one mimicking a nave user blithely clicking 'Yes;' about a third as many domains (0.6 percent) did drive-by downloads by planting spyware even when the user rejected the installations."
Installing from an original Windows XP CD, I get infected before I can apply windows patches, without vising *ANY* websites! ARGH!
Everyone knows that... I mean if a user has an idea what spywares are and heard of firefox he probably uses it, if not this study won't change anything.
\u262D = \u5350
No way. I never would have noticed, I mean, with me using Firefox on an unprotected windows system/u> for over a year, and not getting a single virus/piece of spyware.
Could somebody with power please post results like this somewhere that the general public would see?
Slashdot readers already know this!
This needs to be in USA Today, New York Times, on Fox News, CNN, local newspapers, local news, etc.
Then it would actually mean something.
Please dear God, let there be no "Hang 10" jokes in this thread...
In a geek-oriented web forum that I help to moderate, I noticed a post that linked to a Russian website with graphics of the solar system (probably stolen), something that a lot of geeks might go and take a look at, particularly the younger ones. I didn't notice anything weird about the site, other than its blandness and lack of any real substance, until I glanced at the source code and saw the obfuscated link in a hidden iframe that pointed to a toolbar installer site. I quickly deleted the entire post, but I have to wonder if this is going to be a new tactic. Should forum administrators block links to websites in the former Soviet Union?
This sig, aah-ah, is comin' like a ghost-sig...
Quality is quality, and education is education.
I can't stress how much this figure impacts people who DO NOT have the money to upgrade their systems. Firefox is a boon to these people.
While Microsoft is demanding more money for more protection, it is a reassuring thought that at least there is one benevolent group willing to make strides for all computer users.
As a note, Katrina victims/poorer folks who survive disasters need internet access to get maintain any sort of life period. I've seen it first hand. They do not have the time to hunt, peck, and spend on software that is defective.
Help me, help you. - Jerry McGuire
So we can say that if you don't explicitly accept anything, you're safe with Firefox. Pretty much what I expected.
I wonder what the numbers will be for IE 7.
and rivers flow downstream.
WTF IS AN EXPERICE?
From TFA:
"We can't say IE is any less safe," explained Levy, "because we choose to use an unpatched version [of each browser.] We were trying to understand the number of [spyware] threats, so if we used unpatched browsers then we would see more threats."
I hope they used a very old version of Firefox. Comparing FF1.5 to an old unpatched version of IE is hardly a fair comparison.
They should have patched both browsers and had them run the same crawl. Then we could see how each browser in its most current state handles spyware, and how much each one has improved via patch releases.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Could it mean the death of IE?
but usually i consider that a good thing.
Owning a computer now is a bit like having a pet rabbit. It never just is. You have to feed it the right stuff or it gets sick. If you leave the hutch door open it might run away then you have to search the street for the bloody thing.
People could choose to have computers which just do their job from year to year but they seem to want to believe that the thing is alive, just like the pet. They want it to have issues and risks, to get "infected" and require "cleaning".
They won't be happy with something which just browses the web and shows them pictures. It won't be as entertaining and involving that way.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
installed Firefox for me? Probably scanned my machine and then installed it out of pity.
Seriously though, since I installed Firefox last Summer it's made Ad Aware and HijackThis obsolete.
A better, but longer headline: Firefox browser less likely to automagically download malware that damages the operating system than internet explorer browser.
The misleading headline makes it sound like people who use firefox are less likely to visit a site that would take advantage of an unpatched exploit in their computer. That conclusion, however, would not surprise me if it were true.
In addition, there are very few people who just go the websites of the world in a random fashion. So who cares if around four percent of the websites out there have malicious programs - that is a problem of domain hosts that allow nasties to keep their sites on those servers. In a world where most people (probably around 80% of internet users) visit the top websites (probably around 20% of sites), I think the problem is one of user education (don't go to sites you don't trust, don't randomly click on crap - which probably needs to be applied most to pr0n surfers).
I just had this image of guys in suits yelling at each other about the merits of Firefox and IE; saying things like "Firefox is a liberal plot to undermine American values!", etc...
But you don't have any problems with "nave users"?
n : the central area of a church
If they kept the experiment going then the rest of the world could get an idea of how safe the sites are they're visting depending on which browser they're using. A bit like the service from Siteadvisor which I can't wait to see working.
Grad students are free. I'd imagine the professors did very little work.
I just stumbled on my first evil site which affected firefox. Only because I had temporarily turned off the popup blocker. I guess I should switch to internet explorer so I can experience more of what the internet has to offer. ***cough**.
But 2+2 = 5.
Exactly what tricks are those sites using, that they still infect a supposedly locked-down and updated IE6? Or conversely, what vulnerable IE setting did the researchers fail to fix?
Seriously, what is really going on there at the html level?
What's this about Solaris?
There are no uninteresting things. There are only uninterested people.
Lynx is a very safe browser. Flash ads are rendered impotant. Animated GIFs are defeated on load. Active X; no way! Lynx is the browser of the future! Now let me get back to my 3270 terminal.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
Please, stop wasting funding researching things that are blatantly obvious. The rest of us knew this already and we dont consider ourselves lucky that you were able to scientifically prove this. This reminds me of the graduate psychology experiment I was a subject for. They ended up proving that the majority of people in the downtown area on a friday night are drunk. Way-to-go guys!! When you feel like doing something difficult and/or actually contributing to society I have a computer system for you to optomize, thanks.
What about comparing the mindset of people using Firefox to the mindset of those who use MSIE? I know people who are seriously under MS't thumb, in that they simply do not care if there is any alternative and quality is completely irrelevant. They also don't care enough about the world to be careful on the web. One friend of mine (who's nearly 31 years old now) I won't let use my computer without supervision because he doesn't want to "learn how" to use Firefox, and he's often impulsively copying crap from god knows where on to my machine or other people's machines to show off the latest stupid gimmick he's found out there someplace. I don't like gimmicks off some random web page running on my PC as I'm afraid of what computer illnesses may come along for the ride...
I think that a lot of people using Firefox go beyond just having a different browser to be safer doing the exact same things. I think that the average firefox user probably has a somewhat different web surfing habit than IE users. Many are using Firefox because they sought out something "safer" than MSIE in general, and are probably actively trying to be safer in their usage as well by not doing some of the things or going to the sorts of sites that those less interested or less knowledgable are doing or going to.
Regardless of the browser in use, who is more likely to click through the bank account phishers, the average MSIE user or the average Firefox user? Things like that...
Experiece??
From the article:
"The moral, said Levy, is: "If you browse, you're eventually going to get hit with a spyware attack."I strongly disagree. If you browse smartly, you won't be hit, even when you use IE. You need to be really careful, but again using the computer properly, won't get any infection. What the author states above is simply an overstated semplification, just as saying that "if you will get enough emails with suspicious attachment, you will open them".
Advise: 1) browse smartly (always). 2) Get Firefox (just in case you were not very focus on what you were browsing) 3) Get a Unix/Linux/Mac if you really plan to browse safely with little thinking.
next week: "Professors Discover Sky Blue, Grass Green".
free software, open standards, open file formats, no software patents.
This test is not really a fair comparison for security (the article doesn't claim that it is) since Firefox is not anywhere near IE as far as market share goes.
If you are writing a piece of spyware to attack a browser, would you rather write it for the browser that ~80% of the population uses, or the browser used by ~10-15% of the population (and consisting largely of internet-savvy users)?
Combine that with the fact that Internet Explorer allows Active-X controls, and the choice is pretty clear.
Both IE and Firefox are written by humans (yes, M$ employees are human too), so both will always contain bugs that can be used by the people writing spyware.
I would expect to see attacks on Firefox increase as its market share continues to increase.
how many of those web sites was pr0n sites :) Coz it sure is funny to see virus attacks come in even thru FireFox.
Argh! What the fuck does leveraged mean!? I was under the impression that it involves a lever and a pivot point. Yes, I know it's a buzzword, but this one is getting fucking ridicilous!
With all due respect, the meaning of the word "leverage" in every example you gave is plainly obvious, and not really even that buzzwordy.
Within the business world, "leverage" is ABSOLUTELY NOT a meaningless buzzword -- no more so than "quantum" is a buzzword in the science community. In case you really don't understand, the word is used to mean "utilize to one's own advantage", with a specific implication of coercive or forceful action. It's a single word that combines several concepts that would otherwise require more space to explain.
Moreover, within financial circles, "leveraging assets" is the practice of using items of value as collateral for further borrowing. For example, a real estate investor may mortgage existing properties to purchase more properties. This reduces cash investment, but increases debt and risk. Asset leveraging of some type is a necessary component of most investment schemes to attain a reasonable rate of return. Thus, whem business types speak of "leveraging assets" they aren't blowing marketspeak out their asses -- they are using specific technical jargon just like computer geeks talking about those so-called "memory leaks".
Now "synergy" on the other hand, is a total load of crap...
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
They have the internet on computers now?
COLOUR ME SURPRISED!
While I use Firefox myself and believe it is marginally more immune to exploit, I suspect that the most likely reason for the results in the FA is that Web users who know how to use Firefox in the first place are more likely to be cognisant of such threats to begin with, and are also more likely to protect their computers from spyware/adware/etc.
Seriously, somebody queue up Ric Romero from Fark...
/troll, I don't care.
no shit
sig goes here!
Ok, let me start by saying that I really don't know if you are right or not... but I think not. Do you think PCs are more common at homes or at corporations? In every corporation I worked, patches are installed automagically by the network admin. In every home I know of non-techs, it's the opposite -- patches are NEVER installed.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I'm really sick to death of all the "Firefox kicks everyones' ass" pieces all over the place. I really can't stand being in the mindset to defend MS, but yet...
/. post even more stupid). The conclusion is if you take two unpatched browsers, you'll get spyware a lot, and moreso for IE.
.00000001% of malware that got through I guess!)
This whole "study" was stupid in terms of proving one browser more secure from malware than the other (which wasn't their point apparently, which makes the
Ok, as others have said, that's not exactly like finding out the Sun orbits the Earth or anything.
It is much like saying "hey, you know, if you go into a burning building without firefighting gear, your gonna get burnt".
REALLY?!? WOAH! HEADLINE NEWS!
"If you have sex with a number of HIV-positive people you may well contract the virus".
SERIOUSLY?!?
"If you vote republican, you will slowly lose your personal rights".
THE HELL YOU SAY?!?
"If you vote democrat, you will pay a bunch more in taxes".
YEAH, I GET IT, IT'S OBVIOUS!
Let's see what happens with two FULLY-PATCHED browsers. Will FF still come out on top? Yes, I would imagine so. I'm not about to say IE isn't inherently more dangeruos than FF, because I think it is. But it's a question of degrees... are two completely up-to-date installs of FF and IE going to be *that* much different? I would seriously doubt it. I'd be willing to bet they are close enough that you could effectively ignore the difference (until your machine gets wiped out by the
It's interesting to me... I've been using IE all along... there are some things that annoy me about FF that keeps me from using it full-time. In all that time, I can count on one hand how many times I've been infected with anything. And, once I moved to Maxthon a year or so ago, I haven't been infected with anything even once. The difference between IE and FF is not THAT big, when you are fully-patched.
Talking about anything less is pointless... and yeah, I know the argument... "But grandma doesn't know she should be patching her browser and doesn't know how". Well, get grandma off the computer! We don't let kids drive cars because THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO (neither do many adults of course, but I digress). Using a computer is no different than using any other tool: you can hurt yourself, and sometimes others, if you don't know how to use it. Can't you smash your hand with a hammer? Can't you cut a finger off with a can opener? Can't you badly burn yourself using your oven? There is a certain amount of risk to using any tool, and you accept that risk, but more importantly, you learn about the tool to some minimal degree that allows you to mitigate the risk as much as possible. People need to start doing the same with computers. Not everyone has to know how to hook a system call or spawn daemon threads in a VM or whatever else, but keeping a browser up to date, especially as relatively easy as it is today? Yeah, I'd say that's the MINIMUM level of knowledge one should have, and if you don't have it, git knit a sweater, you shouldn't be touching a computer.
Enough with all the "FF rules and IE sux0rs" crap... if you like one or the other, great, no problem, choice is good, use what you like. But enough with constantly telling me how unsafe I am using IE (or an IE derivative). My experience does not bear it out, and even if it did, the answer would still be what it's been all along: the USER is more at fault than the browser.
Hey, when something gets through FF by the way, do we start screaming that it is insecure and no good? Of course not! We first ask "well, what did the USER do to let the garbage in"? Because OF COURSE it could never be FF's fault. And you know what? 9 times out of ten, it isn't! Just like 9 times out of 10, it isn't IE's fault... ok, to be fair, 8.5 times out of 10 for IE... like I said, I don't doubt FF is a bit better.
Ok, I'm done, rant over.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
One of my routines when I install a new copy of Windows is to set all file/directory perms so that the average user can only write to their local home directory. This is usually a game of 1) set the perms, 2) see what breaks, 3) make an individual decision about whether to reset the perms for a particular file or directory to fix the brain dead program that requires users be able to write to a non-home directory in order to properly run.
How many of the infections are caused by the silly default perms that Windows starts with? I once secured the permissions on NT3.5 and discovered that ordinary users could not use any system help files because they could not write to C:\winnt\system32\help or some such system directory. On that same NT3.5 box, I installed a utility from the resource disk that was supposed to set the system up to be C3 (or C-Something) secure. The utility immediately reset all permissions back to the default of "Anyone Can Do Anything Anywhere(tm)". NT4 and Win2K defaults were not much better.
I've mostly given up on Windows for this and other reasons and have been running Linux on all but one of the family boxes for years which basically solves the default permission problem. But I've got one Windows laptop left that I need to upgrade to XP (my wife needs to run a student version of ArcView). Have they done anything to fix the lax default permissions and does this make any difference for preventing spyware?
FreeSpeech.org
..Firefox "beams on" faster; as
option {BurnAllBridges: on;}, and, -alas-; there's no
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=176645&cid=146 67513 Turning Back(tm)..
[ Never trolling, but not quite serious either.. ]
A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
If by "browse smartly" you mean "only visit one or two well-known sites and go noplace else", then I agree, you probably won't get hit. But one of the points they made in this study was that spyware installed itself in a 'drive-by' fashion, with or without user interaction. Sometimes those suckers come from 3rd part ads on well-known sites, so it's hard to cover that particular vector of attack altogether. I suppose if you disabled ActiveX, Java and Flash, you might only come across malware in the case of exploitation of some unpatched flaw in IE or in Windows ... but we all know how on-the-ball Microsoft is for security, so that's not a problem, right? Right?
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
Not a single user running Konqueror on FreeBSD has been infected by malware through their web browser.
I'll probably be alright using Firefox on Linux though.
i agree about the funding issue. but at one point, university of washington and hank levy in particular did research into fundamental concepts of system design and performance. its very sad that this kind of thing is what the grad students are working on these days.
According to the article, "We can't say IE is any less safe," explained Levy, "because we choose to use an unpatched version [of each browser.] We were trying to understand the number of [spyware] threats, so if we used unpatched browsers then we would see more threats."
So reporting this on CNN and the like wouldn't have the impact that you hope it would. In fact, this study might be useful in studying malware but is meaningless in comparing FF with IE regarding security (as they rightfully admit).
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
This was on Yahoo's front page today at about 10:00 AM MST http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20060210/tc_cmp/179102 616
Really? Care to give us an example? Or are you just playing the "Opera Fanboy" again?
UNIX: Find it, fsck it, forget it.
In other news the grass is green!
Shick's Law: There is no problem a good miracle can't solve.
You can test the browsers yourself by placing the URL to the Yahoo Random Link http://random.yahoo.com/bin/ryl in a toolbar bookmark and click it a few thousand times. Although be warned it can take you anywhere! So I really wouldn't recommend using it in IE.
There used to be a "browser buster" on mozilla.org that would reload this URL (loading a new page each time) automatically in a frame. But I don't see that out there anywhere any more. Probably because the YRL was busted for a long time.
Could this open some eyes and increase interest in alternative (Linux, Mac) offerings?
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
In Soviet Russia, obvious states YOU!
Most people savvy enough to install and use Firefox are generally more aware of the risks and have safer habits in general. I'm not sure if this study will do much beyond stating the obvious otherwise. However, it's good to have concrete data for posterity's sake.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
I'm not sure if you were serious about disabling ActiveX, Java, and Flash completely, but you forgot to mention JavaScript. IMHO, it's usually more annoying than Java, which at least runs in a sandbox.
birds more likely to get avian flu than fish.
Vote for Pedro
Since switching to Firefox I stand up from my seat much more often (every half hour) while waiting for the system to release the 1G of memory hogged by it. That has had a very positive effect on my piles problem.
that opera is even safer
if their experiments were to hold any merit they would have tested a wider variety of browsers instead of just the top two (windows browsers)
I would think that a good number of people from small villages in Africa would tell you that drunk people on a Friday night is obvious.
From personal experience (Madagascar not mainland Africa), I can say that without a doubt, most of the people 'downtown' in the village I lived in for a year would be drunk on Friday night. Especially if they were fishermen.
[All Your Fish Are Belong To Us]
Further to this, in financial and business circles it means exactly what it means in physics - using some sort of mechanism to amplify the force of your action - like in futures contracts, or contracts for difference, or spread betting - where you can realise the same absolute loss or gain with much smaller capital.
Of course IE is unsafe, because it is the primary target. Is there even a secondary target? Did any of the sites contain Firefox exploit code?
It says they used an unpatched machine. No shit, you need patches. If Linux and OS X were completely immune, why is it that patches exist for them? Nothing to hide, right?
Blame the user, not the software.
And I don't believe synergy is total crap either. Synergy is what catalysts do in chemical reactions or what musical instruments do when combined - you can listen to a drum player and not get anything. You can listen to a bass player and not get anything either. Now put the two together, and they make sense... music... Add a violin solo, which on its own is crap, and the whole thing is better than its parts separately. Synergy is the difference between the value of the sum of the parts and the value of the parts acting together. Firefox with no extensions is quite basic. Mouse gestures on their own don't work. Put them together and you get something useful....
I'll stick to using IE thanks. At least I can rest assured knowing that most every website will work properly. The only ones that don't are by asshats who put a bit of javasript on the page to not let you view it if you're using IE.
//Not on the Firefox bandwagon
.. and they are much more fun to use too!
Use nLite to apply SP2 to the disc, silly. :-P
Really? Let's try replacing the word 'leverage' with the word 'use' in all the three examples, and see if we lose any significant meaning:
Most of the exploits that used IE vulnerabilities to plant spyware were based on ActiveX and JavaScript, said Gribb.
World Wind uses satellite imagery and elevation data to allow users to experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if they were really there.
learn how other organizations leverage the pod
Even given your argument concerning business use of 'leverage' - which I still consider dubious - the only one of the three that might fall into that category is the last one. The other two work just fine with 'use', and so to use the word 'leverage' can only be put down to the author thinking that it makes him seem more intelligent to leverage a long word when he could equally well use a short one.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
They're owned more times and by more people than the ipod.
How much safer is Firefoxs really, considering there's ~7000 open bugs, thousands of extensions, each a potential entry point, and millions of users with delusions of invulnerability? How exactly is 0.9% (Firefox) better than 1.6% (IE) anyway? Both mean spyware has been installed. Is it okay to have less spyware now?
What does it matter that 'leveraged' can be replaced by 'used'? That just adds more weight to the gp's point, which is that the meaning of the word 'leveraged' in the examples is plainly obvious. It means 'used' (except for the last example, where 'exploit' might be closer in meaning).
I got a virus on windows and I don't see any slashdot headline saying windows xp vunerable to virus attacks...
i agree
Actually the weatherman and the traffic guy of our local radio station discussed FireFox a lot, I have never heard them talked anything about "mozilla suit" or Linux.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Pudding is tasty.
Yeah sure Firefox is good. I used it everyday but don't you all realise how much it consumes your pc memory? and IE? wth is that? I'm sure i've heard it before... Now I'm using the netscape 8...
If dreams are like movies then memories are films about ghost..
In a move of utter brilliance, I forgot to unplug the network cable when doing a Win2K reinstall one time (and the network cable was hooked to DSL).
;)
Before it was done installing I'd been rooted and someone had already started making ISO'd warez available.
Needless to say, I don't forget that part anymore (hey, it was 3 AM or something).
SYS 64738
Yeah, I'd agree... The right word is "naive", or more correctly, "naïve".
Microsoft-free since March 28, 2004
You know, I never thought I'd say this but Netscape really sucks. I still have my Netscape 1.0 CD. Times have changed though. If you're using Netscape anything, it's being released by AOL. You can rest assured it is no longer the superior product it once was. It's been hashed up and recoded by the same team that brough you the AOL ISP client software, which has been the death of many a Windows-based PC. You have to wonder what all it's phoning home to AOL, too.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
Here on Slashdot, this is the same discussion as Microsoft v Apple - very little intellectual discourse and lots of emotion. Might as well discus religion for all the difference there as well.
Yeah, I read a lot of the comments - the 7000+ security problems with FireFox and the test using unpatched machines. (How about a real test showing IE on an unpatched machine v a patched machine?)
Really, what's the use? Is there one single person here that will change their mind over their browser (or Op Sys) due to any of these articles? These things are just fuel for flame wars. That's all they are and that's all they're posted for. Period.
I challenge anyone to disagree; but with an intelligent argument, not just emotion and flame. (BTW, I don't mean a clever 'flame' argument, a real intellectual one. One with real facts and figures. Tests with defined tests-beds. That sort of thing.)
I, personally feel that there is better security with mature products, and not through using obscure ones that feel 'safe' because nobody will bother to attack them. We see the truth behind that now with FireFox and all the attacks it is getting. (Security through maturity, not obscurity.)
I stopped using FireFox for two reasons: It was being attacked, successfully, far too often, especially with browser hijacks. Then I discovered Maxthon. It is a shell for IE that is like IE and FireFox combined with a huge dose of steroids, that makes both IE and FireFox seem anorexic by comparison. Will anybody here try it? (http://www.maxthon.com/ Well maybe those that use IE perhaps; but FireFox users? Blasphemy!
BTW, I have nothing to do with the Maxthon product except that once I tried it (on the advice of a friend) I never used either IE of FireFox again. Well almost never, I still use FireFox to get my Excite Email, because it has low enough security to get me logged in; and I use IE to get Windows patches - I can still cheat with it!
Get out the torches! Somebody diss'ed FireFox! This is like a depiction of Muhammad! Burn cars, embassies, everything. The horror, the horror!
Keeper of the terrible karma ---
Agreed.
It would be financially prudent to leverage your buzzword knowledge base to facilitate the expedited rollout of your market-oriented banter into the channel prior to the commencement of the second fiscal quarter, any further delays in RTM could translate into a competitive advantage for other marketing targetted individuals such as yourself.
really ---- can't handle big lists of bookmarks (can't arrange them --- and i submitted this bug years ago), can't ^n to clone a new window, have to search through tons of stupid extentions, can't import IE bookmarks with correct positions. And, it doesn't work on a lot of sites. Oh ---- and it takes fricken forever to start up.
If the researcher was worth his salt, he would know what mechanism was used to install the spyware and adjust settings to avoid it. Now, that information would be useful! Or at least publish the site so other could determine the real issues. What a STUPID article.
Could be 1 difference in vulnerabilities was the whole issue. Statistically meaningless.
The only thing firefox is good for is comics.com with adblock. Otherwise, forget it.
"Levy and Gribble didn't set out to verify that, but they did note that the few successful spyware attacks on Firefox were made by Java applets ", but they can be easily blocked and allowed on trusted domains only using the NoScript Firefox extension, which takes care the same way of JavaScript, Flash and other plugins for a paranoid yet usable security level :)
There's a browser safer than Firefox, it is Firefox, with NoScript
If Firefox were being used by two hundred million people around the world and was therefore the target of thousands of hackers I submit it would have just as many holes if not more.
Why is it surprising that the exploits, deliberately targetted at IE, shouldn't affect Firefox all that much? The same argument applies to the "awesome security" of Linux vs. Windows. Were Linux to be on hundreds of millions of PCs around the world, and it were under assault from thousands of hackers, to quote Yoda, "When 800 hackers per component you reach, hold up so well you will not."
I now await flamebait or troll moderation. (Seriously, about 1/2 the time I bring this up, that's what happens around here.)
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The principle (it's _not_ just a theory) of Conservation of Leverage says that the middle example should have been transformed into:
World Wind uses satellite imagery and elevation data to allow leveragers to experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D...
HTH.
FP.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Would this VMWare browser appliance be overkill?
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/vm/browserapp.html
It claims to be free.
Discuss, discuss.
http://www.firefoxmyths.com/ Dont blame IE for your bad browsing habbits
Do NOT goto this URL http://www.forthesims.com