Can you disprove it? You like using jingos to make a point too? Sorry but the fact remains that if Mozilla was the number one software we would all be bitching about security problems, popups and other annoyances. Not to mention since Mozilla is open source, its hard not to argue that since the coding is open that it is easier to crack and infect. So tell me again why its safer other than it has fewer users?
Seriously you cant buy the anti-argument that its simply the program and not the amount of users.
Question to you. If you were a hacker looking to cause great amount of damage to the internet, would you choose Opera? Mozilla or IE?
Eagerly waiting.
Mozilla blocks popups no matter how many people are using it. You figure it's some kind of giant cluster thing?
So tell me again why its safer other than it has fewer users?
It's safer because:
1. It's a cleaner, more modern design. IE's code problems (mostly design problems) go back to it's original code base nearly 10 years ago. Mozilla's code is mostly new. The vast majority of the Netscape code was jettisoned because it was such a mess.
2. It's not integrated into the OS. A vulnerability of the browser doesn't affect the mail client, file manager, update system, help pages, etc.
3. It was built by a group that sees security as a design problem, not a marketing problem. Microsoft still hasn't understood the lesson.
4. It allows users a much finer control of what content to allow and what to reject. Popups, java, javascript, and other contect can be excluded either completely or site-by-site with a few simple clicks.
5. It has safe and sane defaults.
Seriously you cant buy the anti-argument that its simply the program and not the amount of users.
It's not an anti-argument. It's a provable fact. Shall we examine the security of Apache and Sendmail against IIS and Exchange? IIS and Exchange should be successfully attacked much less according to your theory, since IIS and Exchange have a much smaller user base than Apache and Sendmail. That's provably not true.
Question to you. If you were a hacker looking to cause great amount of damage to the internet, would you choose Opera? Mozilla or IE?
I'd look for the most easily exploited code and then use it as a jump-off point. And that would be IE. The fact that IE is also the most used code is a nice benefit, but not really necessary.
Try not to confuse correlation and causation.
"its hard not to argue that since the coding is open that it is easier to crack and infect. "
Then why is all the cracking and infecting done to CLOSED source code, and none to OPEN source code??
Because the code is Open, the vast majority of bugs and just plain sloppy code are found because millions of eyes are looking at it.
That's the beauty of open source, it quickly migrates to perfection. Its innards are all right there in plain sight yet it STILL can't be cracked. That is the definition of quality - you can see exactly how it works but you still can't break in.
Its a well known addage in information technology that "Security by obscurity is no security at all".
Keeping your code secret does not make it secure.
Microsoft is secret - yet it is totally insecure.
Vastly more is to be gained by breaking into web servers than into Joe Sixpack's computer. Yet the only web servers routinely broken into are those running Microsoft IIS (closed source), and it accounts for less than 20% of all servers on the web - but 98% of all breakins.
If I was a hacker looking to break in, I would pick the SOFTEST TARGET. Not the most PLENTIFUL TARGET. Ask any thief.
I can't believe after 5 years of Microsoft's CLOSED source software inflicting billions of dollars of damage on the net and business that there is STILL someone who believe the Micorsoft B.S. that insecurity comes with popularity.
You really need to upgrade your education on this issue.