Secure Web Browsing, Why You Should Switch to Firefox

by Mike Frost

A recent article by the Washington Post stated that Microsoft's Internet Explorer was vulnerable to 0-day attacks for a total of 284 days in 2006. Being vulnerable to a 0-day attack means that hackers are exploiting vulnerabilities in software for which no security patch has been released and yet IE is still used by 80\% of the Internet's users.

In contrast to Microsoft's 284 days of vulnerability in 2006, Firefox users were only left vulnerable to attack for a total of 9 days, and since most hackers tend to fish in the largest ponds, these vulnerabilities were not as widely exploited as those in Internet Explorer.

Although based on these numbers IE users would assume that they were safe from attack for 81 days in 2006, a small and sad number, but it gets worse. When considering that most updates took several days, weeks, or even longer to be applied it is hard to determine if IE users were safe AT ALL in 2006.

Clearly, when confronted with this data, what needs to be done becomes apparent. It is time for IE users to switch to Firefox once and for all. Switching will not prevent users from being able to use the same sites and features that they have grown accustomed to in IE. Many of the upgrades that IE adds periodically are actually items that they have copied from Firefox over time. Security upgrades like pop-up blockers, Phishing Protection, and the ability to quickly clear private data have all been built-in to Firefox for some time now where as Microsoft is just now starting to catch on to the need for these features. Other features Firefox has set the stage for include Tabbed Browsing, built-in Spell checking, live bookmarks, Session restore (allows you to reload your browser to a previous state after closing it), and Automatic Updates.

About the author:
Mike Frost is an author and content developer for "The Beginning of the Internet" who specializes in Technical writing for the Internet masses. His personal Blog which logs his adventures across the Internet can be found at mikeymillions.blogspot.com