The most SECURE browser?

Thank you, Callender & A Guy. Two very good options. Will save me a lot of headache.

ThrashZone said:

Hi,
Yea I don't get the need for all of the third party add-ons either ?
But with Chrome you might as well tell it what you don't want it to run because it's famous for running everything/ that's not necessarily a good thing

Personally I have two add-ons Flash and wm player,
And disable them when not in use,
Internet explorer 10 or 11 using 64 bit processes is about as safe as it gets in my book but I don't even use 64 bit processes to feel safe but I know it's there
But to each his/ her own,
Security starts with a decent antivirus/ Malware protection/ Spyware protection which are user friendly and windows friendly,
Too many add-ons = mass confusion if issues arise

Thanks again man. Aviator is now my browser of choice.

carwiz said:

Let me ask you something. How many entries do you have in your Host file? That will tell me how concerned you are about security. How many sites do you allow to use Flash? Are you using a 64-bit browser? Do you have enhanced security turned on? Do you have Windows Firewall turned on? How many entries have you put in the firewall?

Most answers to these questions will be; zero, all, don't know, what's that and who cares. Then they will complain that IE or Windows is unsafe. Yeah, right.

i just got home and i'm about to sleep so i'm not going to dig up those numbers... Thanks for the sarcasm towards the end of all that, though... but you are talking about configuring Windows and Firewalls. Not browsers.

Enhanced security in Internet Explorer will protect you from the threats i listed in the link within my previous post affecting IE 6-11 or whatever it versions was. Again, that's a setting. Furthermore, how many people do you think did not have that setting enabled and got infected?

To sum it up: Secure out of the box. Which IE is NOT. IE Might be good. But honestly, IE is not what i'm looking for. I'm familiar enough with it to know that I like other browsers because they have a better "feel".

I understand that people get comfortable with a browser and configuring it, etc., and not really want to change browsers, maybe go as far as to say that's the only one that should be used.. But my question was "The most SECURE browser." and i guess i should have clarified that i don't want to configure it and do all this research to do it right like you did at one point to secure your IE. Or maybe you have your MCSE or maybe all of this just comes natural to you. This is not the case for me. I am studying a bit to get there though (Just A+ so far, Network+, Security+, etc. afterwards)

No i do not use 64 bit browsers. The Aviator Browser (Which by the way is what this topic is about, Browsers) automatically blocks flash and asks you if you want to allow. When you want to allow, click, and your video or whatever it is starts like its nothing.

And i use COMODO Firewall and Zemana Anti-logger which, again, is unrelated to this thread. These things are not browsers.

I respect your opinion but i want something a browser that takes security in to consideration FIRST. Call me a script kiddy, but i want a program to do a certain thing and do it right, I don't want to know the entire genre of knowledge to configure it properly. When i get my certifications i'll configure it better than most out there, i'm sure.

Honestly, this type of question is almost like politics and religion in a way because the exploits for each browser change from day to day.

Show me some kind of benchmark vs Aviator. Quality of protection, Pros and Cons, etc., if your really trying to show me something that i don't already know about IE and if i'm convinced then I will be more than happy to switch to IE and configure it. Down side to that is every time i reformat or do a computer i need to do these configurations. On my main machine here at home, that's not a problem.

carwiz said:

Besides... I'm not talking about "Settings" to secure my browser. Windows has "Settings" but is still more vulnerable than a Linux OS for the most part. I want a browser that is BUILT for security.

You are misinformed. Linux/Unix has more current vulnerabilities than Windows. You just don't hear about them.

I guess that was a bad example.

Linux requires major knowledge and know-how in order to tighten it up. If you know what your doing on a Linux machine then i'm sure you could make the Windows OS look like a really dirty petri dish under a microscope.

Aviator is a young browser (first released to the public late in 2013) and we don't have much 3rd party info about how it stands up in the real world. I've not seen it at any "find the flaws" competition.

The Aviator browser (in my opinion) is meant to draw attention to the services offered by the parent company. After hours of reading their blogs, I would never do business with them. (But I'll keep an eye on their browser.) Their style/hype of communicating things is worse than Chicken Little's and Steve Gibson's.

I cannot seem to find any specs for the Aviator browser. Which versions of TLS does it support? Which TLS version is in use by default?

I do understand what you are saying re: "out of the box" vs. changing settings for a browser. The only security related thing that I've done to IE11 is turn on EPM. My OS level security/privacy measures don't rely on IE's settings. There are things that I do with IE that no other browser can do. If they could, I would use them more

Maybe someday, I can overlook the hype that WhiteHat Security has churned out and feel comfortable using Aviator for important stuff. Until then, IE11 (64bit) is for important stuff, Pale Moon (64bit) for the not so important stuff and Chrome (32bit) is at the bottom of the heap.

I dislike adding things to browsers. The OS HOSTS file and OpenDNS takes care of all my browsers. I have a VPN that handles all traffic for the OS (not just the browser traffic like Zenmate is limited to).


Let us know how Aviator works for you. It will help others decide if/when Aviator is ready for prime time. I've installed it a few times this year into a virtual machine. Each time, this came up:

Code:

---------------------------
patch.exe - System Error
---------------------------
The program can't start because MSVCP100.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem. 
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

Installing Aviator again (per the error message above) just results in a different error message and then the install aborts. Sigh.


I've also uninstalled Aviator from a couple of real computers... each time, it broke html links for the browsers that remained. But uninstalling Chrome does that too from time to time.

To my surprise, Aviator works on Mozy.com. Mozy requires (required?) 3rd party cookies that hold info for cross domain single sign on between salesforce.com and mozy.com. This makes me wonder what I read about Aviator preventing those types of cookies.


As far as using a 64bit browser:
ASLR adds to the browser's security, but there are ways around it :-(

UsernameIssues said:

Aviator is a young browser (first released to the public late in 2013) and we don't have much 3rd party info about how it stands up in the real world. I've not seen it at any "find the flaws" competition.

The Aviator browser (in my opinion) is meant to draw attention to the services offered by the parent company. After hours of reading their blogs, I would never do business with them. (But I'll keep an eye on their browser.) Their style/hype of communicating things is worse than Chicken Little's and Steve Gibson's.

I cannot seem to find any specs for the Aviator browser. Which versions of TLS does it support? Which TLS version is in use by default?

I do understand what you are saying re: "out of the box" vs. changing settings for a browser. The only security related thing that I've done to IE11 is turn on EPM. My OS level security/privacy measures don't rely on IE's settings. There are things that I do with IE that no other browser can do. If they could, I would use them more

Maybe someday, I can overlook the hype that WhiteHat Security has churned out and feel comfortable using Aviator for important stuff. Until then, IE11 (64bit) is for important stuff, Pale Moon (64bit) for the not so important stuff and Chrome (32bit) is at the bottom of the heap.

I dislike adding things to browsers. The OS HOSTS file and OpenDNS takes care of all my browsers. I have a VPN that handles all traffic for the OS (not just the browser traffic like Zenmate is limited to).


Let us know how Aviator works for you. It will help others decide if/when Aviator is ready for prime time. I've installed it a few times this year into a virtual machine. Each time, this came up:

Code:

---------------------------
patch.exe - System Error
---------------------------
The program can't start because MSVCP100.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem. 
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

Installing Aviator again (per the error message above) just results in a different error message and then the install aborts. Sigh.


I've also uninstalled Aviator from a couple of real computers... each time, it broke html links for the browsers that remained. But uninstalling Chrome does that too from time to time.

To my surprise, Aviator works on Mozy.com. Mozy requires (required?) 3rd party cookies that hold info for cross domain single sign on between salesforce.com and mozy.com. This makes me wonder what I read about Aviator preventing those types of cookies.


As far as using a 64bit browser:
ASLR adds to the browser's security, but there are ways around it :-(

During installation i've receive no errors whatsoever. Although i did get some kind of error I can't remember exactly what it was but the MSVCP100.DLL message you mentioned sounds familiar. This occurred when i reformatted a friends computer and put Aviator on it. Not sure what that's about... I thought it might have related to with Chrome not being installed prior (That a requirement? Idk...), or the butt-load of Windows Updates not being installed.

So two reputable contributors on this forums have recommended IE11. If i wanted MAXIMUM protection/privacy what settings would I need to configure within IE11? The only thing is that if something doesn't work, and i want it to, i have to disable a setting, go back and see if it works, etc. Basically trial and error. I hate that.

Aviator seems to be configured for security out of the box with minimal configuration, however, i am not closed minded and i am open to trying other more "Secure" browsers whether it be IE11 or BS2012

So the comment you made about 64-bit browsers... do they add security or are they less secure, overall?

I wish i could afford a subscription to a VPN service for my entire PC's traffic but i can only do the free ones at this point. I'm broke as a joke

And how would i test a browser's security if i wanted to compare one to another? Is there a site for that? I'd like to find one that actually attacks the browser with some of the latest known exploits so i can see which one comes out on top.

Thanks in advance.