Figured I'd dust off the forums as its been a little slow. Does one browser have better security than an other?
Presently I run Firefox 3.6.15 and IE8 8.0.6001.18702 I preform all my updates (Win XP SP2) weekly (daily...)
Just wondering if one is better than the other or is Chrome / Safari / XYZ even better as far as security for online banking, stock accounts etc etc etc....
Well, there was a 'hacking' challenge the other day, as I recall from the results, Safari was exploited the quickest. I think Chrome, IE and Firefox were all similar to each other.
My personal opinion:
All browsers, and OSs have holes. The more 3rd party add-ins you add, the more likely you are to have security issues. IMHO flash is one of the scariest add-ons. Not that it is necessarily Adobe's fault (rat Bastards) but there are exploits found everyday, and most users don't install updates and patches.
As for which to use when banking, I would use a fully patched and updated or Firefox or Opera (only due to market share). If people want to steal from you they need to write good exploits/software. While you can write platform agnostic exploits, it's a whole lot harder to do cleanly (transparently) across several platforms. Also, ideally, you would use an install of the browser with no add-ons or plugins. All this noted, many banks write their logins specific to IE, so often you are stuck with I.E. and addons. DOH!
Of course all of this is my opinion and certainly I have nothing to backup these claims except what I have read through the years and far too many years of IT experience. Ever want to read a good book to put online security into perspective, read Kevin Mitniks book "The Art of Deception", he shows that most failures of security aren't in the software, but in the social manipulation of the people using the software.
Chrome and Firefox were not hacked during this years Pwn2Own.
Keep in mind though, this is slightly different than what we have to worry about. Things like Java Script exploits or Flash exploits come into play with browsers.
Firefox has a ton of security focused plugins. On my laptop, I use noscript because the wife uses it a lot and she's gotten infected from script exploits when looking for a new hair style. Something really silly was a complete pain in the but to fix.
I'll look this weekend and add what other plugins I use to help keep me safe.