The IT Nerd

A new study is out from The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Google, and IBM that has some interesting things to say about web browsers and security. For example:

• Firefox users were found to be the most likely to use the latest version of that browser. Apple Safari users were second. Microsoft Internet Exploiter Explorer was dead last. This is important because the study noted that failing to keep browser software updated greatly increases web surfers’ online security vulnerability to attacks. So this result means that Firefox users are more likely to be secure than any other browser.
  
• The study also reported that Internet Explorer had 1.1 billion users or 78.3 per cent, Firefox had 227 million users or 16.1 per cent, Safari 48 million users or 3.4 per cent, and Opera just 11 million users or 0.8 per cent. This means that if I were a “evil doer” who wanted to target web surfers, I’d target Internet Explorer (after all, most other “evil doers” already do) as there’s more of those users out there which means that I am more likely to to get a browser that is not up to date.
  

Here’s a link to the full study. It’s a very interesting read. In the meantime, make sure your browser is up to date so that you’re protected from “evil doers.”

This entry was posted on July 7, 2008 at 12:23 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Firefox, Internet, Internet Explorer, Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.