Spyware Makers Noticing Firefox
from the what-else-can-we-switch-to? dept
Many people have pointed out recently that the reason "alternative" browsers like Safari, Firefox and Opera seemed to be more secure than IE was because no one was using them. That is, they aren't any more secure in reality, but the people who exploit security holes saw no reason to target them. With the recent growth (and related attention) of Firefox, however, some now expect spyware makers to start targeting that browser as well. The question, really, is how well Firefox/Mozilla will be able to fend off these attacks compared to IE. That might show how secure Firefox really is in comparison to IE.
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half correct
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Re: half correct
I think that open-source projects are only marginally more secure than closed-source projects by their open nature, and comparing actual security in general isn't possible on that scale; it's a project-by-project thing, because it depends on the number and calibre of people involved vs the project complexity.
Open source projects should have better peer-reviewed fixes that come out in a more timely fashion, and that's the only difference. I think such a difference is a really important one, and that, while OSS stuff can't always be vastly more secure inherently, that the turnaround time makes a very big difference.
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Re: half correct
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spyware is not security
Spyware can be avoided by using an antispyware program, security holes in the browsers can only be handled by fixing the security holes.
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Re: spyware is not security
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Jumping the gun
So we'll have to see how the Firefox team copes with pushing out an increasing number of fixes, and whether the Internet population actually bothers applying them in a timely enough fashion.
In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that a return to modularity is going to be required in the near future. The javascript engine *should* be farmed-out to shared libraries for the purpose. So should the UI. Let Firefox be a *minimal* refactored core with lots and lots of semi-optional libraries, preferably that can all be updated from the core itself. The plugin architecture is right, but it's too high-level for the bugs remaining to be discovered.
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