I’ve used Internet Explorer on my network . I have about 651 PC’s all running Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition and Internet Explorer is the default browser for every pc. Not one of those PC’s have a problem.

As an Infastructure Technology Administrator of the Pennsylvainna Facility for Microsoft, We, that is to say I, only use Windows Live OneCare and Windows Firewall and my PC’s are well protected.

So for the firefox users, Switch back to IE, Download the new more secure version of IE, which is IE7, and Get some Anti-Virus software and a good firewall.

Remember to update them frequently because those pieces of software are no good without updates.

Not only does Firefox not have extremely critical vulnerabilities like IE, as said it reports and fix the smallest of bugs which even then have a negative effect on the smaller bug comparison rates. IE does not report or fix such small bugs which has a positive affect on those rates, but not for the web.

IE was insecure and un patched for approx 95% of 2004, Firefox only 50%. Only a small portion of this large difference is due to the market share differences. Such public articles need to be stopped and corrected before they have a negative affect on the site themselves, for not reporting the facts. That’s what a reviewer has the duty to do, and is not what has happened. It needs serious correcting and clearing up in an un biased way, and serious changes for future articles.

OTOH, we have to be careful when talking about rate of infection. We have to avoid that statistical bugaboo — cause vs effect (or correlation).
Obviously, we’re going get fewer problems with FF users than IE users!!
Why?
Because these are the more computer-savvy users in the first place !! :>)

I’m an avid FF convert (can anyone say, “TABbed browsing”; how can anyone live without it), but I can honestly say that I have never been infected by a computer virus or piece of spyware on my personal Windows boxes using IE over these many years. (Maybe I just don’t have much fun on the Internet ;>) — of course, I have all the safe-surf tools installed).

So, what we need is a double-blind study :>)

BTW, I’m a Langa Plus subscriber. I enjoy it and benefit from the occasional cool tool that somebody’s uncovered. I just stay away from the MS vs. anti-MS crap. I like Windows XP — I like Linux (and make my living as a Unix consultant). But I don’t like IE now that FF’s here!

Oh, crap.
There’s some strange beeping and my computer’s starting to slooow dooown…

thanks for stopping by and for commenting.

Of course, the other cool thing about Firefox is that it is platform independent - I can run it on my Mac, as well as my PC whereas Microsoft stopped developing and supporting Internet Explorer on the Mac after Internet Explorer version 5.2.3 a couple of years back.

Regards,

MoN

I wanted only to say that I’ve been reading Fred in the last months, and this seems to be a “deadline-savior” article. It’s amazing how a person with his credibility and fame can write this kind of amazinly stupid non-confronted things about such an important theme of discussion like IE Vs. FF….. I have read the 4-pages repplies and what I can say is already said : according to my experience, FF is far more better than IE because 1)NO spyware since I left away my old IE , 2) tab browsing , 3) it didn’t crashed my O.S. when it freezed; I only had to stop the process and star it again, 4) Non-well-viewed pages are bad-designed pages, not let’s-blame-FF-for-this pages, 5) no pop ups at all at this very moment for me, 6) Plugins, you can change all in FF with non-3rd-party tools, 7) it’s constantly reviewed and every error is published with its right fix (try to imagine this in IE XDDDD),….
Oh, and I have emailed Fred, but I don’t think he’s going to answer any of us……

Regards, and keep on writing the truth

MoN

that may have been a temporary issue because I can browse those pages no problem today.

Thanks for stopping by,

Tom

But seems that thread was deleted overnight, because everyone didn’t agree with him and many of the people came up with solid proofs refuting his misleading statements.

Bryan, I had second thoughts about emailing Fred after replying to your comment so I have emailed him - if I hear back from him, I’ll post the response here.

Tim, thanks for the comment and the compliment!

I’m not overly familiar with Fred’s previous writings, not being a paying subscriber but I am familiar with his reputation.

Unfortunately, for him, I think this article has done his reputation a considerable amount of damage because his article will prompt some people to go back to Internet Explorer. These unfortunates will get infected by malware and spyware simply for doing what they were informed was the more secure thing to do.

I hope he has the good sense to publish a correction. Quickly.

Nice rebuttal. Note too that as of today, Fred’s recommended visit to current US-CERT bulletins shows vulnerabilities exist only in IE and none are now present in Firefox or Mozilla.

I’m a paying subscriber of Fred’s, and I deeply respect him, but I’m frankly mystified by this article. Perhaps it’s time for a medical checkup or something to see if there are heavy metals in his drinking water.

– Tim

A friend of mine did post a link to this post on his forum though.