Firefox flaws account for 44% of all browser bugs

I think one of the main reasons that FireFox is seeing the highest percentage over IE is that MS made some serious improvements first with IE 7 and now IE 8 as far as security including the "suggested sites" option. That tends to steer the novice user away from garbage sites to MS screened sites while searching.

This is turn around there from the old IE 5.0, 5.5, 6 days where FF had the edge and wasn't open to trojans, trojan downloaders, adwares, spywares like you saw with the older IE versions. Watching what addons/toolbars for browsers are used can also help limit the vulnerabilities.

logicearth said:

Granted it will not work for those who disable UAC, but who cares about them.

I take great offense to that statement.

We should be concerned about how everyone secures their computers as all the insecure computers keep all of us fighting the issues of attacks and virus. UAC isn't perfect and is highly annoying when your setting up a computer and trying a lot of software demo's like myself UAC becomes more of a negative then a positive aspect to my computer experience.

That is interesting, however, I never experience any issues while I use Firefox (official releases).

I don't find it unbeatable but I have yet to find anything that is faster, more customizable, and easier to use.

zezasu said:

Thanks Crazy B. but I still think i read it somewhere else lol. Then someone probably got it from there though. I will still keep using Opera though and enjoy it regardless of all this.

Safe browsing and not going to dodgy sites also helps, unfortunately the average person does not know this and word by mouth keeps spreading Firefox.

As I said it's a widely quoted source - all links I found lead back to that one piece of research.

Of course Firefox with noscript and flashblock installed is not vulnerable to these attacks - if you are also aware of social engineering tricks - as you point out - and avoid them, that helps too.

Opera will stay (relatively) safe as long as it stays at 2.5% market share :)

halluc1nati0n said:

Where is Chrome in the statistics? ...snip ...

If you use your google-fu and search for BROWSER MARKET SHARE you will find out quicker than asking :)

Matthew

macgyver2 said:

logicearth said:

Granted it will not work for those who disable UAC, but who cares about them.

I take great offense to that statement.

You really shouldn't take offense. Because if you of your own free will disable the security that protects you. Well that is your own doing. And if something requires that security that you disabled to be on to work, well? Software cannot protect you from yourself, and as long as you disable the security.

halluc1nati0n said:

Where is Chrome in the statistics?

Chrome was still in beta form when first released there and won't be seeing any percentage share until that briwser and OS is generally available. The article there simply makes comparison between the browsers that already see regular use. Even Opera has been around for some time seeing it's own 10 Unite release lately.

logicearth said:

macgyver2 said:

logicearth said:

Granted it will not work for those who disable UAC, but who cares about them.

I take great offense to that statement.

You really shouldn't take offense. Because if you of your own free will disable the security that protects you. Well that is your own doing. And if something requires that security that you disabled to be on to work, well? Software cannot protect you from yourself, and as long as you disable the security.

the offense is the "but who cares about them" part sounds like your saying if they don't want to protect themselves then they don't need protecting by others. I guess its my army values of protecting those who can't protect themselves.

macgyver2 said:

...I guess its my army values of protecting those who can't protect themselves.

You cannot protect those that do not protect themselves. You could give them all the best protection in the world, but that protection becomes useless when the ones being protected shot themselves. Turning off UAC is the same thing as shooting yourself, UAC handles a lot more then just prompting you for confirmation. It also handles the transfer between the various levels of Mandatory Integrity Control (Low, Medium (everything normally ran without admin rights), High, System). And MORE!

Well I won't debate the comment " You cant protect those that do not protect themselves" as the army, police, moms and dads etc do this on a daily basis.

As for what UAC does I have read so many different opinions on what it does or does not do that I concluded that what I know, it takes up some portion of my HDD space is all it does or ever will do.

So until I read otherwise its just like any other program for security and its flawed and until they fix the flaws for me its just an annoyance to tell it to trust what I am doing and can't detect when actions are initiated by some rouge program.

So basically it sounds like UAC is strictly a control mech. that "criminals" will find ways around and apparently already have. this program (UAC) is like a card access system into a building some cards have higher access then others. UAC should grant or deny access based on a set of rules in its programing. Only problem is UAC locks the doors what about the windows? or the garage? I am not saying UAC isn't a good idea I just think its to little to late and not fully fuctional for what ever reason.