Test Your Browser's Security

[Michael Coffin]

Hi Folks,

I came across this excellent site for testing browser vulnerability today. You might want to run the tests here to assess whether your particular browser (or your settings) has known vulnerabilities:

http://bcheck.scanit.be/bcheck/index.php

IMHO - you should use the results as a guideline to help you make decisions about which Internet browser you use, under what types of conditions, and what your User Preference settings might be to help secure said browser.

PS: Much to my amazement, Micro$osft Internet Explorer 6.0 with SP2 on XP Home passed ALL tests. I'm sure it has a lot to do with my own User Preference settings, firewalls, and other contributors - but it IS nice to know that my current configuration is as safe as one can make MSIE. :)

-Mike

[Joe Lopez]

Interesting. I use Firefox, and it comes up clean, no vulnerabilities. I've only had it on this machine for about a month (I'm at the office), and I haven't had occasion to change any of its default security settings.

[Jeff Sumberg]

Is everyone aware of the very serious WMF exploit out there, affecting all versions of Windows 2000 and XP?

You should get yourself the unofficial patch for this until M$ gets around to releasing it next week. This is a bad one that you can catch without being online. Just sharing an infected file of many types (image, word proc, text, web page, email without attachment) online or not could cause problems.

I also use Firefox (or Mozilla). I would never use IE (never have).

[Derek Decelles]

Opera comes up clean as well, but the amount of security programs I have running in the background could be considered overkill, so I'm not surprised.

Sygate also has some good port vulnerability tests on their site at:

http://scan.sygate.com/

[Jeff Sumberg]

Regarding that WMF exploit, Microzoft released the official patch today. Amazing what a little bad press and an unofficial patch can do! :cool:

[David Brooks]

Opera comes up clean as well, but the amount of security programs I have running in the background could be considered overkill, so I'm not surprised.
I am with you Derek. I have four layers - a firewall/router - my PC has a firewall, virus checking and spy ware checking. I use IE for the past 4 years with no problems. I think that most problems get blocked at my firewall/router (looking at the logs).

[Jeff Sumberg]

I use IE for the past 4 years with no problems.
I don't HATE Internet Explorer (IE) so much that it's a Micro$soft product, more than it is a very bad design, rushed to market. Aside from the constant exploits found in it due to poor software coding, NONE OF WHICH will be detected by any of the layers of protection you have (the recent WMF exploit is a good example), the one stupid design "feature" is the "BRO" or "Browser Helper Objects". This is software that is automatically installed on your machine, WITHOUT your knowledge or permission. You go to a web page, and a BRO is offered to your browser from the web page, and installed. The idea was to make your "experience richer" as BillG likes to call it. The intent was good, but somehow Microsoft never thought there were bad people out there that would misuse this sort of thing. As a result of BRO, over time the machine got loaded up with spyware, advertising clients, and other useless stuff you didn't want or need. Most of which you could not uninstall or remove.

IE should have just been a browser and nothing else. As a broswer it's "Just OK" too, the others beat it by a mile on functionality.

This why I won't use it.

Of course ALL software has flaws. I should know, I've been writing applications for 30 years. But there is a difference between good design and bad practice.