Firefox Over IE?

Sorry if this is in the wrong section. Anywhoo, I read on a couple of other posts about Firefox being recommended over Internet Explorer in terms of security, I was just curious about what the security risks are with IE? I recently installed Firefox and would be grateful if someone could enlighten me on this. Everyone else I've asked says what amounts to "Yeah use Firefox!" but can't give many a reason why.

I think in many ways it's the attitude of people towards good old Bill and his company , seems like all the hackers/bad guys loathe him so the majority of viruses/trojans etc. are aimed at making him look bad and exposing exploits whereas Firefox is perceived as being 'cooler' , just an opinion of course I could be wrong

Use Google search. Or Live search if you REALLY want to.

P.S. Here, I'll make it easy for you: http://www.google.ca/search?q=intern...security+risks

As Ghengis Kwell mentions IE gets targetted by malicious code writers.

That's part to make Microsoft look bad, but also, since Windows integrates IE into much of it's day to day functionality it acts as more of a gateway the hackers can attack to compromise whole systems.

Firefox isn't immune to being targetted, but it is less so. In addition Firefox has the flexibility of add ons that can boost your security. Tools such as NoScript help mitigate malicious code injection through Flash and Javascript.
If an advert supplying service gets compromised, as they do sometimes, then their customers' websites get compromised (just look at Guru getting blacklisted by Google briefly a couple of weeks back for an infected ad).

Okey Dokey, Thanks guys, sorry for asking something in a forum Dmitri3, next time I'll google it and remain silent, good enough?

i use google chrome as my browser, i like the setup and incognito mode.

Can you press the mouse button in and then move up and down in chrome yet?

"An independent study shows that, in 2006, IE users were vulnerable to online threats 78% of the time. Firefox users? Only 2%."

“At risk” defined as publicly available exploits with no patch. Source: “Internet Explorer users Unsafe for 284 Days in 2006”
Brian Krebs, Washington Post, 1/4/2007
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/security/

Rofl owned, but like the other guys said, its more down to the popularity, and the malicious code writers, think about it, Windows is the most common OS for the average pc buyer, and IE comes standard with it, thus an attempt to hack IE, means you could probably infect a very large amount of pc users.

Same with anti virus', if you have one well advertised, and most common, then it is most likely targeted by hackers. I once had norton, and i was getting a virus a month, doesnt mean theyre bad at protecting, just means theyre being hacked faster than they can prevent.

Is that 2006 data still valid in 2009?

I use Firefox over IE also because I read somewhere that it has less security risks, but that was a long time ago and I'm not sure about now.

Everything is better than IE. Opera, Firefox, Chrome.

IE stinks..... I only use it for a couple of sites that don't load properly with firefox.... for everything else Mozilla is the better choice hands down (and that's without taking into account the increased risk of virus/trojan/worms/bots/etc on IE).

On top of security, Firefox is immensely customizable and it is also fast (not as fast as Google Chrome though).

Not only are their fewer security risks, but firefox is faster than both IE7 and IE8.

However, Firefox has a rather large memory footprint, especially when multiple tabs are open. I suggest a browser like Chrome due to its small footprint and independent-process tab architecture, though it is lacking in some features (and doesn't like Guru for some reason).

I recently switched to Safari 4 Beta for evaluation purposes, and while it's faster and incredibly customizable, it suffers from gigantic memory problems. It's currently using 163,596k of memory. That's nearly three times what Firefox uses, and almost ten times what Chrome uses.

Your choice of browser is up to you, but really the bottom line is "don't use IE".

The browser being released in the 21st century, it does not have smooth-scrolling. That is sad.

I recommend Firefox, as it provides more protection.

Like I said, it's lacking in some features, but it runs small. That's a big deal to power-users who routinely have many programs open at once.

I don't use IE because it's non-standards compliable. Apart from that I can block all cookies and scripts through firefox add-ons. Depending on what you want to do I find that add-ons for firefox can come in really useful.

Popularity is NOT an excuse! If it's more popular then they get more money thus they are able to hire more people to fix holes. If they can't do that, it just says they're shitty, that's all.

Open Source has another way to do this though. More popular means more people willing to put in their own time into the project (fix holes, make addons, etc.)

Asking is okay. I never said you shouldn't ask, I just said you should do your own research as well.

So they can fix their holes faster. All well and good, but that's offset by the fact they're going to have more exploits to have to counter.

Any patch will have a finite development no matter how many programmers you throw at it, and all those development times add up.

I asked on here because in a few other threads I read it was hinted on, thought it might help someone else besides me. Trust me, I can research

Well, then that shows that this business model doesn't work. You shouldn't have to accept "oh it's fine, this program is supposed to be filled with holes and exploits because it's so popular".

Do you really think Microsoft doesn't have the resources to actually bother to make IE, you know, standards compliable instead of inventing their own "improved standards" (or whatever they call them)? Or try fixing bugs faster? ...

the middle button/scroll wheel? yeah, it does that now. it also maximizes properly in aero mode under vista. however, if you have "hide taskbar" enabled, it becomes inaccessible if chrome is maximized and is the primary window.

though since it is still primarily a beta software, little problems like these are expected. it's still very nice though, purely because of the drag/drop tabs.

IE has always sucked... that and Firefox is hugely customizable, smaller, open source. Plus you can use any character in bookmark names.

IE has never been a good browser, as a developer I could write a page and half of shortcomings the browser has and why you should never use it.

The main reason it's more vulnerable to exploits has nothing to do with popularity. It ties into your OS way more then a web browser ever should, read up on how it handles ActiveX controls and it will probably scare you away from ever using it again.

Firefox is fast, customizable, and being open source is less prone to serious exploits. It follows standards set by the W3 (as does every browser except IE), and innovates with every new version.

Some people will tell you FF has a large memory footprint. Prior to FF3 I would agree with that statement, but today I wouldn't. Compare it's memory usage to any other browser once it's been open for a few hours, with lots of tabs being closed and opened. Yes, it will use a lot if you aren't doing anything else (every application does this, the more RAM you have free the more it will use), but nothing compared to the > 700MB I've seen IE consume. A bare-bones installation of FF uses very little RAM, a large number of addon's contribute to it's high usage more then anything else.

Opera is another good alternative. Personally I don't like Chrome or Safari, but each has pro's and con's. Try FF or Opera, just don't use IE

[edit] If you ever need to view a page that gives you an error saying it must be viewed in IE, download the IETab addon for FF. A simple right click and it will switch the tab's rendering engine and off you go. 99% of the time this has nothing to do with FF not being capable of doing it, just that some developer decided to parse the UserAgent string instead of actually checking to see if the commands are available. MS blocking Chrome is a prime example of this kind of oversight. [/edit]

Firefox is just seems easier overall compared to IE.