Your first point (updates) is 100% valid, I am interested in the level of patching he did. As the ie and ff Operating Systems were both *as* vulnerable this was not a windows/Linux test he should have just patched ie. I dont quite agree with other ways you would make this 'fair'..
Besides a more realistic test would be IE with a tool like EMS Free Surfer MKII (to block pop-ups) installed, and heck I would also throw in SpywareBlaster (to prevent known spyware registry entries) or SpyBot's TeaTimer because they are free and easily installed just like Firefox.
Well it would not be a straight up test of IE vs FireFox then would it? No no for Ie To compete 'in a realistic test' you have to install two maybe three pieces of other software (of which how much is included with windows or free?).
If you intentionally ignore easy steps you can take to make things more secure your test no longer reflects real usage.
Like buying more 3rd party software to protect you from the crap MS give you..
Like buying more 3rd party software to protect you from the crap MS give you.
The stuff I mentioned is free. Anyway, you are correct in that it wouldn't be a straight up test of IE vs firefox. If you want to do that for scientific interest that sure, that is perfectly fair. I didn't mean to claim that isn't being nice to MS, not at all.
I'm just trying to say that if with those free tools I.E. works better for me than firefox (/w or w/o same tools), I will use I.E. + free tools, even if sans tools firefox wins.
That wouldn't necessarily be representative of the quality of firefox vs I.E., just what gave me the best total package as a user. The test was perfectly valid if SP1
+ updates were used, and is representative of the base security of each program. I can't complain about that.
However it would be more interesting to me as a test with I.E. + extra tools, because I do use that extra stuff, and highly recommend everyone else does as well.
For the record, I mainly use firefox because I love tabbed browsing. I use I.E. about 20% of the time, it works better for me on some sites.
Anyway, I would be interested in how SP2 performs, but I'm way too lazy to do the test myself. If you do it again it would be cool if you could post the results. I would also recommending this about a similar test:
AntiSpyWare Test, I found it very interesting.
-paridel