IE11 Makes Over 40% Web More Secure While Sites Still Work

Decided to test the Security settings in IE 10 IE 9 and found that 80% of web sites I regularly visit work fine when I set (advanced tab IE options) security to TLS 1.2. I don't think IE 10 IE 9 'automatically' tries TLS 1.0 if a site rejects TLS 1.2, this alone makes IE 11 worth further consideration.

Anyway, I tried TLS 1.1 on the sites that 'failed' (IE cannot open window) and had to include TLS 1.0 to get the remainder to work. I do not have any SSL security tabs ticked in IE - so far it doesn't seem to cause any issues.

Bill

andrew129260 said:

It makes me interested in using it as my default browser. Problem is, Its just not stable enough.

A possibility is Avast is conflicting too much for this to be a viable option,
Conflicting security features is always a issue it seems,
Cheers.

ThrashZone said:

andrew129260 said:

It makes me interested in using it as my default browser. Problem is, Its just not stable enough.

A possibility is Avast is conflicting too much for this to be a viable option,
Conflicting security features is always a issue it seems,
Cheers.

I had a feeling you were going to say that. Thing is, I have problems with it even without avast, in VM's. Sometimes, its not the security suite, sometimes its just internet explorer.

I'm currently using panda cloud antivirus free.

In ie11's case I would agree but as it's been said early versions are always a bit buggy and if Microsoft feels it's not getting enough input or feedback about a optional release they seem to make it a Important update so more people freak out
But it's all good sooner or later but I do have reservations about ie11 which I do not have anymore,
It does need more patches,
Cheers.

I found this interesting in the article mentioned, I quote *Another thing to highlight is that OpenSSL implemented a feature where they send an “empty TLS record” immediately before they send a message. This empty TLS record causes a change in the CBC state where people consider it to give the message “a new IV” that the attacker can’t predict. This feature in OpenSSL is disabled with the “SSL_OP_DONT_INSERT_EMPTY_FRAGMENTS” option and it’s also included in the “SSL_OP_ALL” option. In OpenSSL versions 0.9.6d and later, the protocol-level mitigation is enabled by default, thus making it not vulnerable to the BEAST attack.* . So basically they are sending an empty record before the actual payload..hmm interesting stuff. Are other browsers going to follow suite? A pic of tls settings from firefox 26 (beta ) 0 means SSL 3.0, 1 means TLS 1.0, 2 means TLS 1.1 etc. Browsers need to up the ante. I set my max to 3.

andrew129260 said:

True, but other browsers are actually usable. My and a couple of others pcs keep crashing in ie11, and 10. Even without any plugins what so ever, or trying ie safe no addons mode.
Its a shame, I was starting to like ie 10 and 11, and then they just started crashing on certain websites and such. I have been having good luck with firefox. So I am sticking with them for now. But the latest tests show that Internet explorer is actually better at blocking drive by downloads and malware compared to even chrome and firefox. It makes me interested in using it as my default browser. Problem is, Its just not stable enough.

FireFox is much better compared to other browsers, the problem is it eats too much RAM.

RoasterMen said:

andrew129260 said:

True, but other browsers are actually usable. My and a couple of others pcs keep crashing in ie11, and 10. Even without any plugins what so ever, or trying ie safe no addons mode.
Its a shame, I was starting to like ie 10 and 11, and then they just started crashing on certain websites and such. I have been having good luck with firefox. So I am sticking with them for now. But the latest tests show that Internet explorer is actually better at blocking drive by downloads and malware compared to even chrome and firefox. It makes me interested in using it as my default browser. Problem is, Its just not stable enough.

FireFox is much better compared to other browsers, the problem is it eats too much RAM.

Agreed :) But when you have 16GB ram like me, ram doesn't matter
(They have been lightning the load with every release I noticed.)

Edit: Just noticed that I had some windows updates and have done them. So far using internet explorer 11 is going without a crash. But this happened before and it was running fine for 2 hours and then crashed loading one blank tab.... We shall see how this goes.

I will say this, Internet explorer hardware rendering is a LOT better then Firefox. I noticed that pages load a lot faster on Internet explorer vs firefox. Then again, its not all that fair since I have about 8 addons in Firefox. (But still even without addons IE is faster) Rendering pages is defiantly noticeably faster. And its really odd but awesome to me that apparently internet explorer is more secure with blocking drive bys and scanning downloads then firefox or even chrome. Odd, but awesome...

If Internet explorer 11 starts working right......I might (dear god....I might say it....) .....like it. Woah, that was hard.

If security is important to you, please, do not use Firefox. It lacks process sandboxing, multi-process containers, or the ability to use integrity levels on Vista+ OSes. Basically, it runs in the context of the user, with no additional security that the OS would provide specifically for browsers (something Chrome and IE both use quite heavily). I'm not saying Firefox is *insecure*, I'm saying compared to IE or Chrome, it is far less secure because it uses no additional OS hardening that has been available since 2006 on Vista RTM.

It's telling that implementing any kind of sandboxing is a P3 bug that's been open since 2005 with basically zero movement.

cluberti said:

If security is important to you, please, do not use Firefox. It lacks process sandboxing, multi-process containers, or the ability to use integrity levels on Vista+ OSes. Basically, it runs in the context of the user, with no additional security that the OS would provide specifically for browsers (something Chrome and IE both use quite heavily). I'm not saying Firefox is *insecure*, I'm saying compared to IE or Chrome, it is far less secure because it uses no additional OS hardening that has been available since 2006 on Vista RTM.

It's telling that implementing any kind of sandboxing is a P3 bug that's been open since 2005 with basically zero movement.

Thanks for the information :) More on this topic below:

Multiprocess Firefox | Bill McCloskey's Blog

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Fe...tent_processes

Just installed 11 via update a few days ago. Hadn't used it at all till reading through this thread. Figured I'd give it a quick look see. It IS very fast at rendering pages, much to my surprise. A little "jerky" maybe but fast. Maybe after a few more of the bugs are ironed out I'll make more use of it. Using Maxthon more and more these days though.