SillyDog701

[Antony]

Microsoft (at least Microsoft Australia) is encourage users to abandon Internet Explorer 6, referring to its 9 years old technology.

Microsoft also quoted a study from NSS Labs that Internet Explorer 8 is much safer than Firefox 3 and Safari 4, as well as Google Chrome.

Internet Explorer 6 is the default browser in Windows XP. (The power of being the default app/setting.)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.1.9) Gecko/20100315 Firefox/3.5.9

[James]

In the study by NSS Labs was there any indication as to "why" IE 8 is safer than FF3, Chrome and Safari 4?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3

[Antony]

In a study by NSS Labs, Internet Explorer 8 caught socially engineered malware 85% of the time compared to Firefox 3's 29%, Safari 4's 29% and Chrome's 17%.

According to NSS Labs, Socially-Engineered Malware is a web page link leading directly to a download that delivers a malicious payload.

The detail of the study is in this PDF. After a quick reading through (not every paragraph), it seems to me that this is a very specific evaluations on browsers, which should not be used to reflect the overall security.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.1.9) Gecko/20100315 Firefox/3.5.9

[James]

I haven't time to read the report right now but I intend to do so later. In your opinion... is the report reasonably accurate and valid?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3

[Antony]

I would say, just skim through would be enough.

Some footnotes from the study:
[quote]1 Note: This study does not evaluate browser security related to vulnerabilities in plug-ins or the browsers themselves.
...
6 Exploits that install malware without the user being aware (also referred to as “clickjackingâ€

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3

[James]

Thanks, Antony, for the guidance.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3

[richard mitnick]

There is really no issue here. I have had IE7 and IE8. IE6 should be long gone just on useabilty, colored tabs, tabbed browsing, all not even thinking about security.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 ImageShackToolbar/5.2.4

[Antony]

Well, Internet Explorer 6 still has quite a huge share even today, all thanks to the software being the default built-in browser in still popular Windows XP.

On the other hand, Firefox is also using the power of "default", [sdt=13042]forcing and pushing users to update for the latest version of software[/sdt] in its default setting.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3