Browser security wars
Looking for a magic bullet against malware? You won't find it in a Web browser, though even the least secure browser is probably safer than most users' computing practices
Follow @rogeragrimesI recently spent several months security testing the five most popular Web browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari. Although I work full-time for Microsoft, I've been using nearly a dozen browsers in my personal life for many years. I've always been a big fan of Konqueror for KDE versions of Linux, and Netscape and Mozilla during their heydays. Lynx is a great browser for safely troubleshooting known malware sites and has appeared in many of my columns. And one of my new personal favorites is Maxthon, for its ability to allow individual file downloads of embedded video content.
InfoWorld has been releasing individual browser reviews all this week (see Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari), and the main story, along with several technology sidebars, will be released soon.
[ Find these reviews and more in the special report: "InfoWorld Test Center's guide to browser security" ]
Web-based browsers are guaranteed to play an even bigger role in our lives in the future, especially with software as a service and cloud computing gaining traction. It's not hyperbole to say that in the near future, the majority of your professional and personal life will be filtered through a browser. Who am I kidding -- we're already that way.
I tested each browser over several months (or longer), did a security feature review, and subjected them to popular browser security tests and hundreds of malicious Web sites (see the main story for the details). I used the latest publicly available browser version (beta or not) on fully patched Windows XP Pro SP3 and Windows Vista.
So which one is guaranteed to make your Internet browsing experience perfectly safe?










