Once and Still a Techie Weblog

Firefox is Less Secure than IE

Over the years Mozilla’s Firefox (FF) browser has been growing in popularity. People have always commented on it being much faster and more secure compared to Microsoft’s alternative Internet Explorer (IE). IE has been known to be bug-ridden or unstable and pockmarked with security holes that could open up your PC to malicious attacks from the web. If a no-good were to just place some harmful javascript code onto a website you visit, say goodbye to your privacy. Techies would tell their non-techie friends, “Hey use Firefox, it’s safer and faster than IE. Take it from me I know what I’m talking about…”

Well, it looks like starting this month the tables have been switched. No bugs for Internet Explorer have been reported so far.

As long as your browser is updated with all the latest patches from the Windows Update site, you’re as safe as a gold bar in the Federal Reserve.

It’s a different story with Firefox though as 2 major security updates to the browser have been released over a span of 6 weeks fixing 5 security holes. Installing those updates is a necessity. If you have anything less than Firefox 2.0.0.13 installed, you are open to attack. Times are changing and just because you have FF installed doesn’t mean your online experience will be as secure as it can be.

Popularity does bring with it a loss of privacy you know. Just like celebrity being hounded by paparazzi, as long as more people use Firefox the more it will become a target for hackers to exploit. One of the major reasons why I think IE is still on the top shelf for malicious code is because it is the primary browser being used by the corporate world. Which means “more money flows through IE”. My two cents…