I am shocked. IE8 performance vs. other browsers

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Wow, just wow. I am extremely shocked right now. For all the bad stuff I hear about IE, this article really hit me square in the eyes.

http://nsslabs.com/browser-security

SOCIALLY ENGINEERED MALWARE PROTECTION

Internet Explorer 8 caught 81% of the live threats, an exceptional score which surpassed the next best
browser (Firefox 3) by a 54% margin. Windows Internet Explorer 8 improved 12% between Q1 and Q2 tests,
evidence of concerted efforts Microsoft is making in the SmartScreen technology.

Firefox 3 caught 27% of live threats, far fewer than Internet Explorer 8. It was, however, the best among
products utilizing the Google SafeBrowsing API. (Note: Firefox 3.5 was not stable enough to be tested during
the course of this test. A patch has subsequently become available to address the stability issue. We were
able to manually verify that the protection was identical between versions 3.0.11 and 3.5).

Safari 4 caught 21% of live threats. Overall protection varied greatly, with two short periods of severe dips.
Chrome 2 caught just 7% of live threats an 8% drop from the previous test.

Opera 10 Beta caught a mere 1% of live threats, providing virtually no protection against socially engineered
malware. In our test bed validation, we verified there was effectively no difference between Opera 9 and
Opera 10 Beta.

PHISHING PROTECTION

Generally available software releases were used in all cases except for Opera 10 which was in late beta and
deemed to be sufficiently stable for testing. Each product was updated to the most current version available
at the time testing began, with the exception of Mozilla Firefox. We would have liked to have been able to
test Firefox 3.5 which was released June 30, 2009, and attempted to test it alongside the other browsers.
However, serious instability where the browser repeatedly crashed (a widely reported issue) along with poor
results prevented its inclusion for the sake of fairness.

Internet Explorer 8 achieved an overall block rate of 83% during our extended testing,

Firefox 3 achieved an overall block rate of 80% during our extended testing.

Opera 10 Beta achieved an overall block rate of 54% during our extended testing. NOTE: It appeared that
Opera experienced operational issues during the latter part of testing which dragged down Opera 10’s
effectiveness. Prior to those issues, Opera 10 was comparable with Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.

Chrome 2 achieved an overall block rate of 26% during our extended testing.

Safari 4 achieved an overall block rate of 2% during our extended testing.

Given that Safari 4, Chrome 2, and Firefox 3.0.11 share a feed from Google’s SafeBrowsing API, these
results indicate that utilizing the API itself is not an indicator of protection capa
bilities.
 
Originally Posted By: 97tbird
hmm... disappointing little fox.


I am the biggest FireFox fan, but this article really has me thinking that big bad Microsoft's browser might not be that bad at all.
 
Quote:

NSS Labs started with a set of more than 1,779 URLs, which it ultimately narrowed down to a testing set of just 492 sites. These sites were confirmed, by manual testing, to be malicious. Yet, not a single tested URL is presented for comparison. This lack of peer-review opportunity leads some to argue the NSS test was completely biased.


Nothing like selecting the test data...
 
The other good thing about IE8 is that MS is moving towards being W3C standards compliant instead of messing up the web by foisting their MS proprietary detritus off on us.

Makes it much better for webauthors.
 
Originally Posted By: XS650
Makes it much better for webauthors.


*+1*

Most of the derision and outright hatred of IE is in reference to IE6. IE6 was the epitome of M$'s "embrace, extend, extinguish" method, as well as their "let's make everything suck" method. It was terrible in terms of standards compliance. It was terrible in terms of security. (Yes, I am using "was". A boy can dream. It will die soon. It *will* *die* *soon*.)

It takes an embarrassing amount of a web developer's time and effort kludging together hacks and workarounds to accommodate IE6's quirks, bugs and overall deficiencies. You wouldn't believe the amount of stuff I have to craft from the ground up twice; once for IE (specifically v. 6), once for everything else.

IE7 was a nice step forward and IE8, to be frank, I take no issue with.
 
Another study that proves "something". Really? I don't think so.

IE8 is what MS could have made if they had any foresight 10 years ago. It is a better browser no doubt.

No mattery what browser you have, you can't cure stupid when people click on malicious links or install goofy screensavers which are nothing more than an entrypoint vector into turning a PC into a bot.
 
Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn


IE8 is what MS could have made if they had any foresight 10 years ago. It is a better browser no doubt.

No mattery what browser you have, you can't cure stupid when people click on malicious links or install goofy screensavers which are nothing more than an entrypoint vector into turning a PC into a bot.


+1!
 
I really agree with what you say, ToyotaNSaturn. One of the biggest problems on the internet is people clicking on questionable websites, downloading junk like strange screensavers, going to websites that are likely loaded with viruses and other trash, using peer-to-peer networks, and doing other stuff that puts their computers at risk. Peopls also run antivirus software that is out of date or even run nothing at all. And then they wonder why their computer got hit.

Spend enough time at questionable websites and downloading a lot of mysterious trash and it will not matter what web browser you are using-you will get hit.

Just because this research may or may not have been funded by Microsoft does not mean that it is a worthless study. You can bet that if a Microsoft-finded study found some sort of problem with Windows, Microsoft Office, or Windows Explorer the results of that study would be all over the web-inspite of the Microsoft funding. I doubt very much if the results of the above research will be spread much on the internet. My opinion is that IE8 is probably about as good as any other web browser and will work fine as long as the computer OWNER does not do silly stuff. Good thing Apple is a small target because based on this study Safari is not exactly the OpenBSD of web browsers.
 
Oddly I have one old (ancient) computer running IE 8 and it is working just fine. I installed it on my modern laptop and what a mess!!!! Problems, crashing, non responsive, egad! Went back to IE 7 and all is well again.......go figure.
 
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