Summary: Depending on how secure your computer already is, you may or may not want to switch to Firefox as an internet browser.
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Every day it seems I hear of some new exploit or vulnerability in Internet Explorer. Several of my friends have suggested I switch from IE to this other browser they claim is more secure: Firefox. Will I be safer if I switch? |
Maybe. It really depends on how secure you are to begin with.
But before you switch it's worth understanding what you are and are not getting and what you'll still need to do.
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I actually run Firefox. It's a fine internet browser, and works very well on 99% of the web sites I visit. Like many of the IE alternatives, it actually does a better job of implementing the various HTML standards than IE does. Unlike IE, it's in active development, which means that features are being added, and bugs are being fixed on a regular basis.
Firefox works well.
If you do switch, you'll still need Internet Explorer at times. Not surprisingly, several Microsoft sites, including Windows Update, require Internet Explorer to work. In addition, many sites are "optimized for Internet Explorer" often whether they know it or not, and they take advantage of IE-specific quirks, extensions, and features not supported in other browsers. The result is that some sites just won't look the same in browsers other than IE.
But what about all those exploits?
In my opinion, IE is an "ok" piece of software; it's better than some and worse than others in terms of overall quality and security. Certainly the news would have you believe that it's a total disaster and security nightmare, but I disagree with that strenuously. I believe IE (and in general Microsoft) is a victim of its own success.
All software has bugs. Period. It's a fact. IE has bugs, Firefox has bugs, and some of those bugs are certainly security related.
Pretend you're a hacker. You want to cause some trouble, and gain a little notoriety - do you look for exploits in the product that 85% of people use (that's Internet Explorer, by the way, though market share is falling), or the one that perhaps 10% of people use (Firefox, who's market share is growing)? Obviously you want the bigger bang for your hacking buck, and you'll target the bigger crowd - the crowd using IE. Couple that with a strong anti-Microsoft sentiment in the hacking community, and you can see that the number of times IE gets exploited actually says more about the number of people trying and nothing about the relative quality of IE versus alternatives like Firefox.
Regardless of their relative merits, IE will be hacked more often simply because it's a bigger target. And as I said, I believe the same is true for Microsoft software in general.
Should you switch? Well, as I said earlier, it depends on how secure you already are. If you're doing the right things already:
- you run up to date anti-virus and anti-spyware software with regularly updated databases
- you have auto-updates enabled, or you regularly visit Windows Update
- you're behind some kind of firewall
- you general visit only "safe" websites
- you don't download things you don't trust or open email attachments you don't recognize
you're probably just fine with IE. The fact is, you should be doing all those things even if you're running an IE alternative.
However, if you want a little more protection and if you want to make yourself a little less of a target, then by all means, Firefox is a great alternative.
Yes, I have all those things, and I run Firefox. Why? Mostly to become familiar with it enough to write articles such as this. I also happen to like tabbed browsing (also available for IE via some add-on products), and appreciate some of the add-ons that are available for Firefox. However my wife, who is probably a more typical computer user, has been using IE for years without a single incident. Not one.
So absolutely, use Firefox if you like. But you don't have to, and if you do, you shouldn't let it lull you into a false sense of security either.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - About Internet Explorer
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Microsoft - Windows Update
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Mozilla - Firefox
Article C2268 - January 23, 2005
Thanks for that Leo. It has helped me a great deal At this point in time I think I will stick to IE. I have never had any problems so far, so we'll see what happens.
Phil.
Posted by: Phillip Forde at March 21, 2007 4:50 PMHi Leo & Folk
Posted by: Lou Gascon at January 26, 2008 7:15 AMYes that entry is a teeny bit dated by almost 3 years and things have moved on...
I switched to FF at the time and was very pleased with it, but my box slowed down big last year, and whilst looking round for the reason, I found that FF was taking up 1/3rd of my C: drive 18Gb - yes one third, thus 6GB of my OS drive...!
FF are getting out of their pants with updates, addons, upgrades and the like...
I thought IE7 was heavy weight, but FF - well...!!
I recently switched to using 'slimbrowser', which including its Groups menu is serving me very well indeed. It open fast and surfs fast - the only problem was in setting up the search facilities to suit me, but I cracked that in no time. I'm loving it...
Oh! and last night they even offered me a free ftp client...!
can't be bad eh?
Leo, I think you should try it and report back to some of these guys...
you might be surprised...?
Lou
I agree with Tyler. Its all about the odds. Attacks against FireFox are less because its less used.
Posted by: Doug Woodall at January 26, 2008 9:57 AMMy choice of browsers at first was 'Internet Explorer', then 'Opera' version 3 or something. It had this big 'hunking ad' that you had to pay a registration fee to get rid of. I tried a few independent ones that didn't impress me including one called 'Firebird' which I think was the original name for the 'Firefox' browser, correct me if I am wrong.
Anyway I eventually settled on 'Mozilla suite'. An open source version of 'Netscape', that included a browser, email client, newsreader and a HTML editor. I used it up till the 'Mozilla Foundation' decided to give it up and concentrate on developing 'Firefox'. It was taken over and renamed 'Seamonkey', apparently the original name of the project.
I then went back to 'Opera', which is still my browser of choice. No offence to 'Opera', but I also believe its the most secure because its at the bottom of the popoularity list.
I origianlly gave up 'IE' because of issues concerning 'Super-hidden' and 'Super protected' 'INDEX.DAT files, which are "supposed to be cache files", but they are better hidden and protected than the 'core operating system' files. Also evey time I have to clean a hijacking out of someone's computer there is only one browser involved.
But to be fair to Microsoft, I think that if you don't pay attention to your security, it don't matter which browser you have. I have; OUTPOST FIREWALL, AVIRA ANTIVIR PERSONAL EDITION, WINPATROL, SPYBOT, ADAWARE, ASQUARED TROJAN SCANNER, AVG ROOTKIT SCANNER and I always keep an eye on whats going on in the background with HIJACKTHIS, an older utility called END IT ALL and the built in TASK MANGER.
www.geocities.com/terryhollett2003/
Posted by: Terry Hollett at January 26, 2008 1:12 PMI use 4 browsers but I don't think all of them are different. AOL Desktop uses a browser that I am not sure of it's origin. The symbol it uses makes me think it is Netscape. If this is the case what will happen when Netscape is no longer supported? AOL also has a browser called AOL browser that I use because it compresses and thus speeds up loading on a dial-up connection. It's basically text only for that reason. I use Firefox also but it and IE7 and Desktop are really slow on a dial-up. The thing that is inconvenient is that the favorites between Firefox and the IE browsers aren't synchronized so you have to put in your favorites twice and organize them separately. I could live with any one of them.
Posted by: duane moen at January 26, 2008 1:42 PMHi
I'm using Firefox as an alternative browser on Windows XP at work and I must say that I am very happy with it. Even our website developer uses it and some of our suppliers and everyone is happy with it. Our website was also designed with features that only becomes visible on FF, but IE doesn't support it, like scrolling images in the address bar.
The only problem I'm faced with now is that I've tried to install it on my Acer laptop with Windows Vista Business as the OS and Norton Anti Virus from Symantec, but now it doesn't work. Some people believe that it is the anti virus software, but try and delete that, you can't and then I have a suspicion that it might also be the firewall which is causing the program not to run.
Also cannot to our network with the laptop, but I suppose this is a totally different issue altogether.
Thanks for a great site :-)
Posted by: Margherita at January 27, 2008 11:08 PMFirefox is dreadful, it puts viruses onto my computer and makes it crash, my anti virus protection never works so do not use firefox!!!
Posted by: Michael Georgiou at June 4, 2008 6:29 AMI installed FF3.0 but my IE7 crawling. FF3.0 enjoys a smooth drive. Then uninstalled it. IE7 comes back to life.
Posted by: mat at July 12, 2008 10:26 AMwhat do you think about Google's Chrome...is Firefox as fast? IE is sooooo slow.
Posted by: agnes at September 4, 2008 3:20 PMFirefox doesn't put viruses on your computer, and it doesn't come with any. If you got a virus because of it you either downloaded Firefox from a site other than mozilla or more likely than not you already had a virus on your computer and it had no visible effects until Firefox was installed.
Also a good work around for IE is a awesome little add-on called "IE Tab", it allows you to switch a page over to IE with just a click, even staying inside the same tab.
Plus, if you have Firefox, it's almost a must to have like the very best, #1 addon, installed - "Adblock Plus".
Posted by: Adam Dally at March 1, 2009 11:30 AM