Get Netted :

The default browser for Windows PC still is Internet Explorer and currently there are different versions of Internet Explorer being run in different parts of the world. The newest operating system Windows 7 ships with Internet Explorer 8 which is being classified as the best browser in its category at present. The other browsers are Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Opera.

IE 8 continues to be the best in its category due to its security features and options that it provides the end users.

According to NSS Labs conducting the tests on browser security

“Windows Internet Explorer 8 caught 85% of the live threats, an exceptional score which surpassed the next best browser (Apple Safari 4) by a 56% margin. Internet Explorer 8 improved 4% between the Q3 2009 and Q1 2010 tests, maintaining its leadership,” NSS Labs reveals. IE8 blocked 81% of all socially engineered malware in the last quarter of 2009, and 69% in Q1 2009. The percentage growth of course reflects the evolution of the browser itself in terms of the security it is capable of offering users.

Eric Lawrence, IE program manager, offered an insight into the work that made IE8 the best choice for staying safe while online against socially engineered malware.

“Since we launched IE8 in March 2009, SmartScreen has blocked over 560 million attempts to download malware, recently averaging over 3 million blocks per day! Hosted in datacenters around the world, SmartScreen’s URL Reputation Service (URS) has evaluated over 250 billion URLs to help keep IE8 users safe from malware. Even more impressively, since IE7’s Phishing Filter was introduced in 2005, the URS has processed over 5.7 trillion requests to block malicious web sites. Every day, Microsoft receives around 300 million telemetry reports from IE8 users and processes 4.1 billion URLs looking for malicious websites and files. On the back end, our systems and analysts evaluate over 1 terabyte of binaries every day to help identify sites delivering malware,” Lawrence stated.

Google Chrome 4, Mozilla Firefox 3.5, Opera 10 and Apple Safari 4 were all bested by Internet Explorer 8, according to NSS Labs. However, Microsoft underlines that IE6 and IE7 deliver no protection against socially engineered malware, and stresses that users of older versions of Internet Explorer should consider upgrading to IE8 as soon as possible. “Apple Safari 4 caught 29% of live threats, far fewer than Internet Explorer 8,” NSS Labs added. “Overall protection improved greatly from Q3 2009, with Safari providing 0.2% greater protection than Mozilla Firefox 3.5 in the current test. Mozilla Firefox 3.5 caught 29% of live threats to put it in a statistical tie with Safari 4. Both Firefox 3.5 and Safari 4 achieved this protection while utilizing the Google Safe Browsing API. Google Chrome 4 caught 17% of live threats, up 9% from the Q3 2009 test. Opera 10 caught less than 1% of the live threats, providing virtually no protection against socially-engineered malware.”

Via : Softpedia