Somewhat unexpectedly, to me, is the news I first read on Slashdot:
IE 9 Beats Other Browsers at Blocking Malicious Content161
Orome1 writes with an article in Net Security. From the article:
"Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 has proved once again to be the best choice when it comes to catching attacks aimed at making the user download Web-based malware. This claim was made by NSS Labs in the recently released results (PDF) of a test conducted globally from May 27 through June 10 of the current year, which saw five of the most popular Web browsers pitted against each other. Windows Internet Explorer 9, Google Chrome 12, Mozilla Firefox 4, Apple Safari 5, and Opera 11 were tested with 1,188 malicious URLs — links that lead to a download that delivers a malicious payload or to a website hosting malware links."
By following the link given, I learned that:
The results for IE 9 were almost perfect: the browser blocked 96 percent of the suspicious URLs when its URL reputation filter was enabled, and an additional 3,2 percent after its Application reputation filter was enabled.
The results for the rest of the browsers were rather poor when compared to that of IE - Chrome blocked 13,2 percent of the URLs, Firefox and Safari 7,6 percent, and Opera only 6.1 percent.
The results for the rest of the browsers were rather poor when compared to that of IE - Chrome blocked 13,2 percent of the URLs, Firefox and Safari 7,6 percent, and Opera only 6.1 percent.
Although I have at times scratched my head and cursed under my breath because many of the web-sites that I visit/use have not updated to be compatible with IE 9, perhaps it is worth the aggravation of having to customize compatibility settings for some sites. Ironically, on one of my computers, I've been unable to directly open PDF files such as the above "recently released results" from the web. However, I'm not sure that it is IE 9 that is the issue. I can download the PDF file and then open it. (Anyone know how to solve the PDF problem? I've been playing with internet options and haven't found the key, yet.)
I am in total awe of anyone who even knows what questions to ask about this stuff.
So I just use Explorer and have been mostly lucky.
Posted by: Hattie | August 17, 2011 at 02:01 AM
Hattie--Please don't get the idea that I know the questions, either. I'd rather be lucky than good, as Hunky Husband always tells me!
Posted by: Cop Car | August 17, 2011 at 10:53 AM
I used IE9 for about 2 weeks on my laptop. It was so unusable that I uninstalled it and went back to the previous version (either that or 8 was unusable and I went back to 7). Maybe every URL I visit is "suspicious". I'm still running 7 on the desktop.
Posted by: bogie | August 18, 2011 at 03:34 AM