Firefox not so secure?
 

It seems that Firefox is gaining popularity amongst the "hackers". In the last size months, over 20 vulnerabilities have been found in Firefox, while 13 have been found in IE. Admittedly there were more serious vulnerabilities in IE.

The article can be found at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05...x_loses_shine/

I'll admit that Mozilla org is refreshingly honest about security problems and has dealt with any flaws in Firefox and Thunderbird very quickly (often publishing workarounds if a patch is not available). This is something both Microsoft (and Apple) have been known not to do in the past

According to the article, part of the problem is that Firefox is a young browser. Microsoft have years of testing behind IE, and know how to avoid the flaws that have been found in IE.

Firefox only has a couple of years of testing, so there will be undiscovered flaws.

The worrying part is that several of the flaws can be exploited using variants of methods that can be used to attack IE. Mozilla should have known about these and prevented them working within firefox.

Note: This is not an attack on Firefox. Although I don't like it, I believe it has done a lot of good to the browser market. It's doubtful IE would have been as heavily patched in SP2 if Firefox was not around, and it's good to have choice anyway.


This post is intended as a reminder to people to ensure their computers (Mac and PC) and software (Linux, Windows, Mac OS and all the software installed) is fully patched.

Also, make sure you have an up to date firewall, spyware programs and Anti Virus.

Re: Firefox not so secure?
 

Why bother posting this thread?
It only tells us what we know already.

Re: Firefox not so secure?
 

I personally didn't know (until I read that article) that MORE vulnerabilities were found in firefox than IE in the last 6 months. A smaller percentage were serious though.


Actually, I was trying to remind people (of ALL browsers) not to be complacent.

Re: Firefox not so secure?
 

:knock: Stop picking on poor Stu, he's trying to be nice and kind :D :D :D

Re: Firefox not so secure?
 

Because it's informative, sums up the overall situation of the Firefox/ IE browser security problems, acts as a reminder to people that NO software or software provider is perfect and most importantly since this is open viewed/ well moderated forum we all get to post items that we feel can be useful to others ;)
We all know that there are MS fans on here alongside Mac fans, IE fans mixing with Firefox/Opera etc fans so a balanced well written post should be thanked rather than questioned.

Re: Firefox not so secure?
 

Well I didn't know that, and you didn't ask me if I did before you posted.

Re: Firefox not so secure?
 

Careful now, don't post anti-firefox threads, Richard will get all tearful ;)

Re: Firefox not so secure?
 

:rofl:

Re: Firefox not so secure?
 

Yeah - people are always so quick as to point out flaws in IE, why not with firefox?

ah, I know why.... don't M$ make IE? ;)