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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."
I'll probably get modded down for this, but Firefox is riddled with bugs. I tried it back in the 1.0 days, had to abandon it due to crashes and problems rendering many sites. I tried it again at 1.5. Nothing had changed. In fact, I got the feeling there were even more bugs. Which kind of makes sense: the more features they add (can you say BLOAT? FEATURE CREEP?) the more bugs they add.
Seems that they really don't care, since the mantra of most firecocks users is: at least it's not IE.
A shame really. Hopefully someone will fork the project and get it right.
Opera is a decent browser, unfortunately it has been known to break on some pretty common javascript. Like xaramenu which is used by quite a few sites. Opera is one of the browsers I test on. I test our web app on Safari, Konqueror, Camino, Firefox and IE. Even though I may get one opera visitor every couple of months. My stats show it about even with Konqueror, and both are almost entirely from users in Europe.
"Firefox is nice enough to download it and install it the next time I start the browser"
Firefox just randomly opens a connection to the web and starts downloading stuff without telling you what it's doing, then pops-up a message saying "hey! I downloaded a new browser". That's the sort of behaviour you expect when your computer is infected with a virus.
Try calling tech support and saying that you were just browsing when your internet connection suddenly got saturated and you don't know why. It's the sort of thing that sends people off on a network security investigation for no good reason.
I'm sure Microsoft will have ironed out all security problems with this version.
If you guys really gave a damn about security, you'd be using Opera.
FACE IT - Firefox is bugware. The security updates are constant. Opera needs no such updates every other week.
You guys harp on security as a way to bash IE, yet you use the security nightmare Firefox rather than Opra. Opera >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> firefox. Deal with it assholes!!!