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Safe Browsing Features Of Internet Explorer 9 VS Firefox 4

Posted on Monday, August 15, 2011 by Arman Zulhajar

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Both browsers have substantial so-called safe
browsing features. In both cases, they basically work from black lists of
forbidden sites sites that are known to carry malware or other security
dangers. Then, when a user directs the browser   quite
likely inadvertently   to a dangerous site, the browser warns the
user before allowing the action.

It’s a simple enough feature, but I fear it is one
that is doomed to eventual failure, just as anti-virus products relying on
signatures of known viruses have become largely ineffective against the
onslaught of today’s malware.

IE uses a feature called “SmartScreen” to maintain
its blacklist. Users can report questionable sites, and SmartScreen can be used
to verify if a site is on the blacklist or not. Conceptually, this is similar
to how Firefox has been doing its safebrowsing (via Google) for its past few
releases.

Do they work? Well, I can’t say I’m a fan of the
blacklist or negative validation way of doing things. It is prone to failure,
doesn’t scale particularly well and generally slows down the user’s browsing
experience as the browser checks each and every site against a centrally
maintained list.

Still, the features are on by default, and most
users will leave them on. If they prevent even one user from stepping on a
landmine, then there’s little harm done.

Qualitative score: IE gets a “C-” while Firefox
gets a 

“C-.” Essentially unchanged.

Privacy Features

Both browsers now provide the means for a user to delete
his browser history, cookies, etc. These features are generally good news for
the privacy-minded, as well as for enhanced security.

In both cases, though, the features are largely
not enabled by default, and it’s unlikely that most consumers would seek these
sorts of features, as they’re often not aware of the security concerns
surrounding browser histories and cookies.

Qualitative score: IE gets a “C+” while Firefox
gets a

“C-.” 

With those built-in features compared, I remain a
frm believer in the use of security plug-ins like NoScript (see http://noscript.net)
for Firefox. Although they’re not largely used outside of a small community,
they’re well worth the effort. (NoScript provides a whitelist feature for which
sites may run active content in the user’s browser. This largely replicates the
capability that IE already has for trusted security zones, but is far easier
for most people to use.)

So, which browser is right for your security? Will
you spend some time setting the security features? If so, IE 9 gives you some
pretty compelling options (if you’re running Windows).  If you prefer something a little simpler,
Firefox is probably a better option, especially if you’re willing to take the
few seconds to install and run the NoScript plug-in.

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