After having played around with IE 9, Opera, Chrome and several others, I'm staying with Firefox for now. Versions 4 and 5 were horrible for me, but as I've stayed on the Aurora channel and gradually bumped up to Version 8, I'm again finding the friendly, stable, fast browser I've enjoyed all these years.
I've just gone the other way on my laptop because of Ubuntu 11.04. I'm settling in right now and so have Fx 6 running till I stabilize. Don't need too many variables! The desktop has Fx 8.
Version 4 was horrible for me and made me stick with alternatives such as Pale Moon 3.6 series. But I decided to try it again with version 6, using the Portable Edition. So far, so good, no performance issues at all.
I was tempted to try out Pale Moon myself, once I saw the post about it having a new release last week. Then again, FF is back at a point where I figure if it isn't broke, don't fix it. It certainly took long enough for that to happen.
Opera, everything works, excellent mail client, all in one app, no need to run separate apps. Speed is good, security is excellent.
I wouldn't call Opera's security excellent... closed source and no real security features to not, besides AVG scanning, which gives them a 5% blocking average and earning them the lowest spot in that particular category.
I need to research Opera security, because I just don't know where this "excellence" is. From my experience with it, all it has is preference controls. That of course can provide some security, but you have to dig deep and know what you're looking at. "Out of the box", I just don't know where this security is, except via obscurity. Many a hacker has stated they use it simply because no one bothers to exploit it. That, of course, doesn't work forever, as we've seen with Macs. Btw, closed source doesn't equal security. It works in Linux because thousands of eyes are upon the code. It's a little different with separate programs. IE 9 is of course closed, and frankly it's the best it has ever been, as far as security out of the box.
I've tried - the research doesn't go far! Very basic and standard stuff, it does nothing that other programs don't and what it does do it does worse (security-wise.) It basically has the same security structure as Firefox but without the SafeBrowser API (so less social malware blocked) and without the benefit of being open source. I don't know how anyone can say it isn't objectively the least secure browser.
IE6 is not the latest iteration of IE, IE9 is. If we have to start comparing Opera to a 10 year old browser... I think you can see the problem there =p
It's still installed by default with currently supported OS like Windows XP, and has a sizable market share though. I'm pretty sure the old Opera was more secure.
It just seems silly to be comparing Opera to a 10 year old browser (12 now?) I mean... it's not even actively developed, it just gets patches and support but obviously it isn't a new revision. I mean, you're right, it's more secure than IE6... but that's not saying a lot haha
Closed source but Secunia's ratings are superb for Opera, here it really doesn't matter, Opera maybe closed source but it has to deal with fully open source hackers so the holes will show no matter what. http://secunia.com/advisories/product/33328/?task=statistics Opera 0% unpatched http://secunia.com/advisories/product/21625/?task=statistics 28% unpatched
Secunia checks for known exploits. What's the point? Any program of even moderate complexity will have exploits. Browsers are incredibly complex. The fact is that if IE or Chrome have exploits it doesn't matter because they take precautions against those exploits. Opera is objectively the least secure in every respect. Closed source, no protection against exploits, lowest score when blocking socially engineered malware. Patching up holes is useless. It's a way to placate users into believing that they're more secure. Yes, holes should be patched but there should be security measures in place to account for exploits.
IE is closed source as well and so far Opera's record against patching exploits have been the best of all, IE can't even be in the same league and Chrome is GOOGLE with captial G. Every browser and even mightly Linux is vulnerable to socially engineered exploits, the reason is not the program but the fool behind it period.
I'll just respond to each point one at a time, I hav eno idea how long it will be... 1) IE is closed source as well. Yes, it is. And that's a huge security issue. So? IE's being closed source does not somehow pull it down to Opera's level. Things Opera does to protect the user: Patch 5% social malware blocked Things IE9 does to protect the user: Patch 99% social malware blocked Sandboxing Protected mode See the difference? 2) And Chroem is GOOGLE with a captial G I fail to see how this is an issue. If you're worried about Chrome spying on you perhaps you should ask yourself HOW they're spying on you when their software is literally open source. Do you think no one's gone through the source code? 3) even linux is vulnerable to SE Exploits Yes, socially engineered MALWARE (idk what a S.E. exploit would be) is something everyone is vulnerable. That does not mean that it is impossible to defend a computer against socially engineered malware. That does not make IE, Chrome, or Firefox's defenses against socially engineered malware any worse. 4)The reason is not the program but the fool behind it period I could write pages on this but I'll break it down into two short statements. a) The fact that a user may or may not be ultimately responsible for an infection in some situation DOES NOT relieve the software of its security measures. b) Security should only ever be handled by software. Users do not need nor should they have to learn about security, there are plenty of ways to secure a system that don't involve common sense. Again, Opera is objectively worse. To say that its security is even close to that of modern browsers is to trivialize literally every security innovation in the field.
Opera is subjectively worse in your opinion cause it doesn't meet your expectations, otherwise its an excellent suite, the best out there. Google Chrome used open source to facilitate the rapid development of its browsers, they actually emulated the highly successful Mozila project in this case. However in the end, it was all for Google's benefit and even in Linux world, FF rules and not Google.
Earlier I claimed that SeaMonkey was my favourite browser, & I still like it a lot, Iron is also a great favourite of mine as well, but at the moment I think Firefox 6.0.2 is my favourite. For a long time I thought Firefox was everything (it ran superbly on my notebook, unlike IE), then Fx #3 was released & I switched to SeaMonkey (#1 series). The portable Fx 6.0.2 is also excellent. I don't know how Fx #6 compares to other browsers in security, but with WOT, Webutation, ABP, Flagfox, FlashBlock & NoScript I reckon I'm reasonably covered.
You're nicely covered, imho. The problem some have with FF, and it's a legit complaint, is that it takes those add-ons to be safer in FF. (And this is coming from a current FF user). Chrome and IE don't need all that, and I don't know if anyone yet has been able to point out Opera security, beyond the in-depth config options in preferences.
