Can any browser be considered 'safe'?

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Judging from the headlines appearing this week on tech Web sites, you'd guess anyone using a browser other than Internet Explorer was a fool.

After all, IE version 9 scored a whopping 99.2 percent in NSS Labs' worldwide test (PDF) of the ability of top browsers to detect socially engineered malware. IE 8 wasn't far behind at 96 percent--the difference attributed by NSS Labs to the Application Reputation component added to IE 9's SmartScreen technology.

By comparison, the four other browsers tested were veritable social-malware sieves: Google Chrome 12 had a 13.2-percent detection rate, Firefox 4 and Safari 5 detected 7.6 percent, and Opera 6.1 percent. The report's chart illustrating the test results is even more striking.

NSS Labs' socially engineered malware-detection test results show IE 8 and 9 to be the runaway winners.

(Credit: screenshot by Dennis O'Reilly)

Such dramatic results should be easy to corroborate, but a search for similar results from other sources came up empty. Every other browser comparison I could find rated Firefox, Chrome, and (usually) Opera above IE in terms of security. In fact, SecurityFocus lists ... [Read more]

Dennis O'Reilly 19 Aug, 2011

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Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13880_3-20089251-68/can-any-browser-be-considered-safe/?part=test-cnet&subj=software&tag=title
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