Internet Explorer Sucks

Schneier on Security ^ | December 26, 2005 | Bruce Schneier

[george76]

Researchers tracked three browsers (MSIE, Firefox, Opera) in 2004 and counted which days they were "known unsafe."

Their definition of "known unsafe": a remotely exploitable security vulnerability had been publicly announced and no patch was yet available.

MSIE was 98% unsafe. There were only 7 days in 2004 without an unpatched publicly disclosed security hole.

Firefox was 15% unsafe. There were 56 days with an unpatched publicly disclosed security hole. 30 of those days were a Mac hole that only affected Mac users. Windows Firefox was 7% unsafe.

Opera was 17% unsafe: 65 days. That number is accidentally a little better than it should be, as two of the upatched periods happened to overlap.

This underestimates the risk, because it doesn't count vulnerabilities known to the bad guys but not publicly disclosed (and it's foolish to think that such things don't exist).

[Dallas59]

FF has it's drawbacks (like losing all your bookmarks if you don't save them)but I prefer Fire Fox over IE any day.

[truth_seeker]

"I prefer Fire Fox over IE any day."

Can I download Fire Fox, without getting rid of IE? I know, you say: "why would you want to do that?"

Because I am conservative!!

Seriously, can I have both on my XP system, and use both?

[Dallas59]

Yes. FF will even let you view the page your looking at in IE.

[angkor]

I run Opera as #1 (4 years, and now its free), Maxthon for some sites that require more IE compatability (Maxthon is a Microsoft partner), and IE only as a last resort.

Yes, you can run multiple browsers on the same system.

But I do wish I could get rid of IE.

[Clock King]

I have all three, FF, IE, and Opera. FF is the most versatile, Opera is faster and can scale a web page. Just use them all as needed.

[clyde asbury]

But I do wish I could get rid of IE.

You can.

[angkor]

Too much legacy stuff.

[clyde asbury]

Too much legacy stuff.

You'd be surprised. Out of curiosity, I tried Linux six months ago, expecting to go back to XP within a short time. I'm still using it and doubt I will ever go back, tho I might migrate to or add a mac with my next computer purchase.

[ShadowAce]

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

Hopefully when MSIE 7.0 comes out, a lot of these security issues will be eliminated. It was originally proposed that IE 7.0 was NOT going to be imbedded with the Microsoft O$. It is this integration that has caused M$ more trouble than it needed.

Personally, i prefer Firefox, and use it as my main browser under Windows, but i'd be real curious to see how Microsoft is going to handle the move from IE 6.x to 7.0. Are they going to provide a removal tool for 6.x, or simply a tool to deactivate it? Gonna be interesting no matter what, and i'll bet that Microsoft is going to get a lot of service request calls over the addition of IE 7.0.

[Still Thinking]

Internet Explorer Sucks

I hope you didn't post this in Breaking News. ;-)

[socal_parrot]

Why not Flock?

[antiRepublicrat]

Seriously, can I have both on my XP system, and use both?

You have to have IE on Windows XP. There is no way to remove it. The most anyone can do is just not use it to access the Internet.

[Always Right]

Internet Explorer Sucks

In other news, bears really do shit in the woods...

[marvlus]

I have Linux as a webserver on one of my machines and am looking to eventually migrate to Linux on all of them.

[ovrtaxt]

Internet Explorer Sucks

[clyde asbury]

I have Linux as a webserver on one of my machines and am looking to eventually migrate to Linux on all of them.

Good for you. Good for everybody, too, since your servers aren't spreading viruses.

[george76]

"New exploit blows by fully patched Windows XP systems"

http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/new-exploit-blows-by-fully-patched.html