Browser Vulnerability Study Unkind to Firefox

Browser Buddy writes "A new Symantec study on browser vulnerabilities covering the first half of 2006 has some surprising conclusions. It turns out that Firefox leads the pack with 47 vulnerabilities, compared to 38 for Internet Explorer. From Ars Technica's coverage: 'In addition to leading the pack in sheer number of vulnerabilities, Firefox also showed the greatest increase in number, as the popular open-source browser had only logged 17 during the previous reporting period. IE saw an increase of just over 50 percent, from 25; Safari doubled its previous six; and Opera was the only one of the four browsers monitored that actually saw a decrease in vulnerabilities, from nine to seven.' Firefox still leads the pack when it comes to patching though, with only a one-day window of vulnerability."

Comments

Wow, how surprising

[Rhone]

Newsflash: Browsers that are actually used by large numbers of people have larger numbers of bugs found and exploited than browsers that are mostly ignored.

Re:How about measuring days of vulnerability

[arminw]

.....A much better measure of security is how many days the users spend being vulnerable.......

The best measure is how many computers of a given OS actually get hacked each year. By that only real measure that matters, OSX is still the safest OS that anyone can own and operate without being a hacker themselves.

Don't anybody come with the old saw about Macs having only a small fraction of the market. If my house is safer against intruders than other houses, does it really matter WHY it is safer? The safest OS "house" is still a Mac running OSX.