more apple viruses in the future?

[Kills On Site]

All I want is to have IE7 be awesome and secure, I bet it is built from the ground up, same as FF, for a better security.

As for the active X controls and coding, since SP2 you have to click yes or no to every ActiveX script

[Canis]

I think the best thing would be to have multiple operating systems have equal marketshare....

[SplishSplash]

This thread is such a travesty.

[U4EA]

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

The argument in question is: there are more vulnerabilites for IE because it has a larger market share, so anyone wishing to cause the most damage will target IE instead of Firefox. This also implies that Firefox is not inherently more secure than IE .. rather it just seems more secure because no one targets it because it's got less market share.

What I'm trying to prove is that the entire basis of the argument in question is flawed.

IE has bigger market share = people target it more = there are more exploits for it

Now if our argument actually held true, it would follow that:

Apache has bigger market share = people target it more = there are more exploits for it

Empirical evidence will show that this is blatantly NOT true. Hence, that argument is null and void.

[Tormentius]

Again, you're comparing an enterprise class web server and a consumer grade web browser (which is more vulnerable simply by the nature of having to utilize the type of content that it does). The argument is not null and void and your attempt at logic is flawed.

[R00k]

If you didn't write Firefox and IE yourself, you don't know how much more secure FF is than IE.

I've been using FF for quite a while, and just recently started getting popups in it. That means that ad builders are finding ways around FF's security to inherently stop popups, just like they did with IE.

Anytime you're talking about internet browsers, you're looking at a tradeoff between added functionality and security. When you make it where clicking a link can automatically install browser plugins, then you're obviously opening a hole for people to exploit.

It doesn't matter who wrote it or anything else. We all know from experience that the hacker community can reverse-engineer just about anything with enough effort being focused on it.

Saying that they can't do the same for FF just because it's open source, or you think they have talented programmers or whatever, is just silly.

[U4EA]

Again, you're comparing an enterprise class web server and a consumer grade web browser (which is more vulnerable simply by the nature of having to utilize the type of content that it does). The argument is not null and void and your attempt at logic is flawed.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I am not (I repeat, NOT) comparing IE (Internet Explorer) to Apache. I'm comparing "IE vs Firefox" to "Apache vs IIS". By IIS I'm referring to "Internet Information Services", Microsoft's enterprise grade web server. So I'm comparing the comparison of two user friendly browsers with the comparison of two hardened web server products.

[Dr_Watson]

I hate it when people use that logic. Just because a product is more popular, doesn't make it automatically buggier and open to more exploits. It doesn't matter if FF were the most used browser ever, the way it handles pretty much everything makes it more secure than IE.

And just because its free and open source doesn't make it secure or any less able to be exploited. Its more secure than a default IE install but hardly bulletproof. Thats only going to become more obvious as it's market share grows and hackers take more of an interest in ripping into it's code.

and by basic logic you would expect it to be easier to write exloits when you have the source code.

[Tormentius]

and by basic logic you would expect it to be easier to write exloits when you have the source code.

Not necessarily. A web server can be hardened far more than a browser while retaining functionality. The operator of a web server knows precisely what a website needs to do and can lock it down so it does only that. By doing so the attack surface on a webserver can be significantly reduced. A browser, on the other hand, has to deal with odd features, insecure code, and constantly changing needs in order to create a user friendly experience. If a browser doesn't do those things users will become frustrated that things don't "work".