Firefox fact

[chaos16]

Is this msg right.

i saw this in cnet.com

Let's see if I understand this.

Firefox is open source. Every hacker in the world gets to see how it works, and write some code to take advantage of flaws/holes. What a challenge they face. Not.

Every security site gets to look at the code, tell Mozilla and get the kudos. Mozilla turns around fixes and distributes them for free. And it doesn't take years. The users get to decide when to upgrade, rather than having some sneaky background tool install and reboot their system in the dead of night.

IE users get to wait years for upgrades. New features arrive less quickly and frequently than leap year. Lots of poor slobs get to pay Mr. Softee for the privilege of using a newer, yet non-standards compliant, browser, since they can't get the new browser without changing the O/S. Hackers, of any stature, wait to ply their skills for good or evil until Vista rears it's oh so late head.

I am not impressed.

If Firefox is losing market share, we the users are worse off, IMHO.



does this mean that firefox is very unsafe?

and that opera is the most secure and safest browser on the market to date?

[Brian N]

Firefox can be very unsafe if you configure it the wrong way.
Luckily all the advanced settings is only reachable by typing about:config, this is because the average user have no clue about what's what, and would probably make things worse. However, Firefox with Java and Javascript enabled can also be unsafe, as I higly doubt they have closed all the security holes in that area.

Dont get me wrong though, Firefox is _very_ secure compared to Internet Explorer, but it is only a matter of time before we begin to see threats that actually works in Firefox due to it's increase in popularity.

Opera are also very fast at closing any security holes that someone finds, but it costs money (unless you want ads) and therefor it will be less attractive to malicious code writers, or whatever people call them.


Well that's what I think anyways, anyone are welcome to disagree :)

[wherethebeef]

does this mean that firefox is very unsafe? " }-




We have not reached the point where the Windows Operating System can be considered safe so that in and of itself raises a certain risk to any program install on the OS. Of course Firefox will come under hack attacks its the way of human nature. Tell a person it can not be done an he will spend a life time trying to prove you wrong.

Is Firefox un-safe, consider that question in another light, an ask yourself if you can protect Firefox and the entire operating system. An when you can say yes to that question then you are less concerned an begin to enjoy the internet.

[trickyricky]

Indeed. If security is of paramount importance, you'd most likely switch to Linux and use Opera for your browsing. If you stay with Windows, then there are millions of hostile programs out there just waiting to pounce, which makes choice of browser slightly less crucial. That said, Firefox is a very secure product and it loses little by being open-source.