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Firefox Users Surf Safer

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the loose-browsers-sink-ships dept.

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."

4 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Or 100% if its a new installation... by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Heh heh. Here's how you avoid that: On XPSP1 installs, turn on the firewall before connecting. On XP without SP, you use the IP Filtering option, which has been there at least since NT4, and probably 3.51. Filter all incoming connections of all three filterable types (ICMP, TCP, UDP.)

    I know you were just making a funny but maybe this will help someone clueless... or, if you were serious, someone more clueless.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. They used unpatched browsers by I'm+Don+Giovanni · · Score: 3, Informative

    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
  3. Re:How about a four-way matchup... by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 5, Informative
    They used computers running Windows XP without Service Packs 1 or 2. They tested IE 6.0 (no details about any patch installs separate from the [lack of] service packs) against Firefox 1.0.6. This is all from their paper (warning pdf), which has numerous other details.

    Somebody should start a news site that takes all the top news stories, finds the original research or primary source, and links to that instead of the dumbed-down yet sensationalistic news wire blurbs and blog whores. I know I'd appreciate it.

    --
    main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
  4. Re:Or 100% if its a new installation... by pclminion · · Score: 4, Informative
    He might not be bullshitting (well, the part about being firewalled might be crap). Back in the late 90's I had a Red Hat machine get rooted before it was even done installing. I'd configured the network information with a public IP address, there was no firewall. Flaw in ftpd if I remember right. Since then I leave the network unplugged until the install is complete and I've got the network set up safely.

    I don't remember the particular release of Red Hat.