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Microsoft Edge Beats Chrome and Firefox in Malware-Blocking Tests (computerworld.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Computerworld:Microsoft's Edge easily beat rival browsers from Google and Mozilla in third-party tests of the behind-the-scenes services which power anti-malware warnings and malicious website-blocking... NSS Labs says Windows 10's default browser is better at blocking phishing and socially-engineered malware attacks than Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox... According to NSS Labs of Austin, Texas, Edge automatically blocked 92% of all in-browser credential phishing attempts and stymied 100% of all socially-engineered malware (SEM) attacks. The latter encompassed a wide range of attacks, but their common characteristic was that they tried to trick users into downloading malicious code. The tactics that SEM attackers deploy include links from social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, and bogus in-browser notifications of computer infections or other problems.
Edge bested Chrome and Firefox by decisive margins. For instance, Chrome blocked 74% of all phishing attacks, and 88% of SEM attacks. Meanwhile, Firefox came in third in both tests, stopping just 61% of the phishing attacks and 70% of all SEM attempts... Both Chrome and Mozilla's Firefox rely on the Safe Browsing API (application programing interface), but historically, Mozilla's implementation has performed poorly compared to Google's. No shock: Google created the API. Edge also took top prize in blocking attacks from the get-go. In NSS's SEM attack testing, for example, the Microsoft browser stopped nearly every attempt from the first moments a new attack was detected. Chrome and Firefox, on the other hand, halted 75% and 54% of the brand-new attacks, respectively. Over a week's time, Chrome and Firefox improved their blocking scores, although neither reached Edge's impressive 99.8%.
The researchers spent three weeks continuously monitoring the browsers on Windows 10 computers. But in the real world, Edge runs on just 5% of all personal computers, while Firefox runs on 13% and Chrome on 60%.
Edge bested Chrome and Firefox by decisive margins. For instance, Chrome blocked 74% of all phishing attacks, and 88% of SEM attacks. Meanwhile, Firefox came in third in both tests, stopping just 61% of the phishing attacks and 70% of all SEM attempts... Both Chrome and Mozilla's Firefox rely on the Safe Browsing API (application programing interface), but historically, Mozilla's implementation has performed poorly compared to Google's. No shock: Google created the API. Edge also took top prize in blocking attacks from the get-go. In NSS's SEM attack testing, for example, the Microsoft browser stopped nearly every attempt from the first moments a new attack was detected. Chrome and Firefox, on the other hand, halted 75% and 54% of the brand-new attacks, respectively. Over a week's time, Chrome and Firefox improved their blocking scores, although neither reached Edge's impressive 99.8%.
The researchers spent three weeks continuously monitoring the browsers on Windows 10 computers. But in the real world, Edge runs on just 5% of all personal computers, while Firefox runs on 13% and Chrome on 60%.
Firefox has addons for ad blocking, 3rd-party request blocking, script blocking, and other security and privacy enhancements; use those, and this ranking will reverse itself.
It's interesting that Edge performed so well, but, here's the problem (from the article):
But test scores like these have not helped Edge grow its share of the browser market . . . . . Since mid-2015, when Windows 10 and Edge launched, the latter's share of the former has continually dropped.
Edge may do well in this one set of anti-malware tests, but overall, as a web browser, it is broken and completely useless. Edge lacks basic functionality and user interface features that have been commonplace in browsers, including Internet Explorer, for a decade or more.
Of course, I shouldn't be surprised at this. The entire fiasco that is Windows 8 and 10 demonstrates pretty clearly that Microsoft is completely clueless about user interface design.
A brick doorstop was 100% effective at blocking phishing and socially-engineered malware attacks. It also performed nearly 98% as effectively as Edge at rendering websites properly.
We shall leave aside, for the moment, the question of whether Microsoft's telemetry should be considered "malware".
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Like what? You can't even give one goddamn example?!
Shit, modern browsers barely have any UI at all, regardless of whether we're talking about Firefox or Chrome or Safari or Opera or whatever other modern browser you want to name. Their UIs consist of a short row of tabs, a toolbar with a few icons and a text input for a URL, and then a large area rendering the web page.
It's fucking absurd to say that Edge's UI is somehow "lacking" when it's pretty much identical to all of its competitors! If Edge is lacking in some way, then so is every other modern browser!
The only real problem with Edge is that it runs on Windows only. That's why a lot of us who'd love to use it can't. We use OSes like macOS or FreeBSD, which Edge doesn't currently support, while Chrome and Firefox and other browsers do.
If Microsoft ported Edge to other major OSes, then I think we'd start to see its usage grow. A lot of us are sick and tired of Firefox and moz://a shitting all over us users, and we don't really want to use Chrome, either, because of Google's involvement. And we sure as fuck won't go anywhere near Opera, now that the Chinese are allegedly involved with it. Pale Moon destroyed its reputation during the AdNauseam debacle. So we're stuck using browsers like those until Microsoft gets Edge ported to other OSes.
It fells to me this is just telling you that the malware writers aren't targeting bypassing edge, and are concentrating on chrome. If edge had a larger user base, and was worth attacking, then the ways around the blocking of malware would be found, and we'd see a change in these stats.
https://www.gnu.org/proprietar...
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
An easily accessible "back" button right next to where you right-click. This is by far the greatest non-keyboard time-saver in a browser UI, especially since most pages assume your hands are not on the keyboard when using them. And if the words "but you can change it..." are about to be typed here, then Firefox wins by default because of the great plugins.
Also, complaining about privacy on others and shitting all over users when using Microsoft products is laughable. Edge has a bad UI, some stability issues, and most of all MS have a horrible record on the web (slow release schedule making their advantages in every benchmark and test short lived, bad standards compliance, terrible / invasive plugin support, etc).
Yet another rubbish and unreliable study on Slashdot. I checked the article, but I couldn't find what they actually measured this result, how they tested it and I could not find a replication documentation. Without this is just a marketing claim. I also would like to know who paid for that study and why. If it was part of a research project what is their goal.
The only reason I see for Edge doing well is that it's still not the main target for malware writers.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Side note RE 0 functionality: First thing I noticed broken with Edge was intranet sites over a VPN tunnel. So literally 0 functionaloty for remote workers. Forced me to actually look for Internet Explorer classic.
To all intents and purposes the desktop/laptop is still using the GUI Xerox invented - desktop metaphor - mouse - onscreen pointer - click and move about the icons for files and folders - WYSIWYG word processors .. so ... automoblies still have steering wheels, even self-driving ones.
.. so Buick decided not to reinvent the wheel, and dropped the experiment.
In the late fifties, Buick experimented with a joystick controlled automobile. It worked fine, but the test customers didn't like it, as they felt more comfortable and in control with a wheel
You know also a good way of blocking most of those? Using ad blockers and other privacy oriented plugins, most of which Edge does not support.
And then, people should know that these tests are always giving different results because the stats change all the time... here:
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
Here:
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
Just keep using whatever you like and feel more comfortable with, all browsers have their own vulnerabilities and risks.
... Edge is the least-used browser and attackers aren't going to expend much energy going after it.
The others are high-profile and coders hammer away at them.
Not mentioned in the article (and fairly so because of relevancy) is that Edge sucks so hard that Nature abhors it.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I don't know about your mouse, and I don't know if Edge supports this, but on Linux on my personal laptop, I use one of the typical many-button mice that are available today, so to go back I just click the button that's on the left side of the mouse.