10 reasons why Mozilla is more secure than Explorer

Floater · 13-10-2003 7:35pm #1

1. Moz allows the user to keep any number of distinct user profiles (each with their own cookie settings and cookie files), security settings, etc. Switching from one profile to another is easy (Tools / Switch Profile). This enables one for example to keep one profile for general use which doesn’t allow Java, doesn’t allow cookies, doesn’t allow windows to be popped by websites, and is generally locked down. Another profile might be kept for a home banking service which might enable features required by that service which one might deem a security risk on less trustworthy sites. IE is a bastard browser in comparison. Almost totally tailored to work for and obey website owners and snoopers generally.

2. Moz has a far wider choice of cookie management settings which takes the hassle out of managing cookies.

3. Moz allows one to block popup windows, and specify a list of allowed sites where popup windows are to be permitted.

4. Moz has a sophisticated password protected system for managing personal form data that can be restricted to named sites.

5. Moz encrypts stored passwords and allows per site settings for whether or not a particular sites password should be stored.

6. Moz supports a wider range of encryption ciphers than IE and allows the user to specify which cipher suites are acceptable ranging from no encryption but with authentication to 256bit AES encryption with RSA, DHE and a SHA1 MAC. The colour of the padlock changes on Moz with encryption strength. IE provides the user with almost no encryption options. With IE, security levels are imposed on the user.

7. Moz allows one to enable Java selectively and specify what it can and can’t do – eg reading cookies, creating or changing cookies, changing images, fiddling with windows, etc.

8. Moz runs on Apple and Unix as well as Windows allowing an organization to maintain a common browser interface across all platforms while diversifying risk and improving security by using different operating systems. IE only runs on Windows.

9. Moz is open source code. IE is not. I notice for example that IE is transferring information from my laptop to Microsoft.com without my consent. E.g. erase all the IE cookies and go into Microsoft.com support and it will show you a country name – ie the country implied by your language settings. One wonders what other information is being disclosed – particularly for users of XP products with their registration demands? Or anyone who uses their “passport” system?

10. Moz is not made by Microsoft and will therefore be subject to far fewer counter-terrorism risks – eg worms and viruses.

Links:

Free download: www.mozilla.org

101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that IE cannot
http://www.xulplanet.com/ndeakin/arts/reasons.html

Should you change your browser?
http://openopen.org/software/browsers/browsers-change.html

Floater

Martyr · 20-10-2003 2:27pm

Excuse my ignorance floater, but can you tell me a little about how
a secure http session works.
I'm assuming that there is a session key, which changes every so often throughout the http connection.
So, how is the key generated, how often is it changed?
Is it possible to find the key through brute force of ciphertext?

irishgeo · 20-10-2003 2:35pm

Mozilla convert here execpt for banking online which only works with IE.

Floater · 21-10-2003 6:46pm

Originally posted by Average Joe
Excuse my ignorance floater, but can you tell me a little about how
a secure http session works.
I'm assuming that there is a session key, which changes every so often throughout the http connection.
So, how is the key generated, how often is it changed?
Is it possible to find the key through brute force of ciphertext?

Are you suggesting that an https session on Mozilla is weaker than one on IE? If so, I for one would love to hear your argument in detail!

Floater

Floater · 21-10-2003 6:49pm

Originally posted by irishgeo
Mozilla convert here execpt for banking online which only works with IE.

Because the bank you use was too lazy to support more than one browser!

If they were really concerned with security they would surely require all their customers to download Moz!

Floater

Martyr · 21-10-2003 8:35pm

Haha!

I just asked you about it, I don't know which browser is better.
Read a little about SSL yesterday.
Here is a link:http://wp.netscape.com/eng/ssl3/draft302.txt
I just wanted to know how it worked!

Hecate · 27-10-2003 6:39pm

8. Moz runs on Apple and Unix as well as Windows allowing an organization to maintain a common browser interface across all platforms while diversifying risk and improving security by using different operating systems. IE only runs on Windows.

...actually, IE is available for Macintosh, but development is pretty sketchy; it has been supplanted by far more sane browsers like Safari, Camino and FireBird anyway. IE was also briefly available for Solaris

. Well, in a sense I guess IE is windows-only, other ports aren't worth talking about really.

But yeah, Firebird is my browser of choice at the moment. It doesnt have a lot of the bloat that Mozilla has, but it retains an awful lot of Mozillas best features, security-related and otherwise.

Capt'n Midnight · 27-10-2003 9:43pm

Apparently you can get IE 5 to work on linux using WINE..

Not sure if you still have all the holes though

but would be kinda interesting to see if other apps built onto IE like VoloView, or those that use IIS as a backend would also work..

LegacyUser · 27-10-2003 9:53pm

www.microsoft.com = 0 popups
www.netscape.com = popups

netscape + all affiliates = shítëware

oneweb · 27-10-2003 10:03pm

Originally posted by irishgeo
Mozilla convert here execpt for banking online which only works with IE.

Stoppit!!! Try using UABAR - will let you fool sites into believing that you're using a different browser!!! (Downfall is that sites will think you're using the faked browser instead of Mozilla and won't feel compelled to develop to web standards)

I adore Mozilla and believe it should be used by everyone!

-Wheeler- · 27-10-2003 10:05pm

Does anyone else find that Mozilla doesn't display some web pages properly - such as overlapping text etc....

Seems like it has some pretty cool features but I'll be using IE until these problems are ironed out.

Wheeler_1028.

theciscokid · 27-10-2003 10:15pm

galeon suffices for me

MagicBusDriver · 27-10-2003 10:15pm

Mozilla is ****. It is used only by hard core anti-MS retards. Even on Redhat Opera is much better.

LegacyUser · 27-10-2003 10:20pm

Originally posted by MagicBusDriver
Mozilla is ****. It is used only by hard core anti-MS retards. Even on Redhat Opera is much better.

absolutely, I'm not too fond of M$ myself, but i've never found a site that doesn't work in ie but does in a competitor, have found too many to mention that work in ie but not in competitors, when a viable alternative arrives i'll be the first to switch but currently mozilla and the like are all shîteware

Capt'n Midnight · 27-10-2003 11:01pm

RE pop-ups
thanks to GoogleBar/Sopyware blaster/spybot - none on Netscape
But Microsoft's site has loads of active-X
BananaY - have you ever been asked to do a survey on thier site ?

oneweb · 27-10-2003 11:09pm

MAgic and banana, when exactly did you try Mozilla?

dahamsta · 28-10-2003 11:10am

Originally posted by bananayoghurt
absolutely, I'm not too fond of M$ myself, but i've never found a site that doesn't work in ie but does in a competitor, have found too many to mention that work in ie but not in competitors, when a viable alternative arrives i'll be the first to switch but currently mozilla and the like are all shîteware

Wrong way round, sweeties. The problem is with developers creating sites to render the way they want in MSIE, which uses incorrect implementations of HTML/CSS/etc. They render "wrong" in Moz and others because they're built "wrong".

adam (an msie user and opera/moz/etc advocate h8r)

Floater · 29-10-2003 6:36pm

Originally posted by MagicBusDriver
Mozilla is ****. It is used only by hard core anti-MS retards. Even on Redhat Opera is much better.

Like many of the other posters here you are missing the key issue of the thread – ie Mozilla is more secure than IE.

On the rendering front I use Mozilla most of the time and almost never have a problem. Where a problem arises – can’t remember when it last happened to me, it is usually because the website has mistakes in their html or other code which they didn’t bother to correct because IE happens to overlook them.

Why do I use Moz rather than IE aside from security? I like the tabbed browsing where for example one can go into a newspaper website and each page can be set-up within its own tab. Finished with that paper and one click dumps all the pages – ie the entire newspaper. Cookie management in Moz is superior to IE and I don’t have to put up with popup windows – which can be a total pain in IE as one waits for the page to load on a laptop.

Mozilla isn’t owned by Netscape/AOL. It is a cooperative effort like openoffice.org.

Opera is full of stupid advertisements, and has far more rendering problems that the current version of Moz. Not to mention the spyware behaviour of this browser from Norway!

Floater

seamus · 29-10-2003 7:13pm

Originally posted by bananayoghurt
www.microsoft.com = 0 popups
www.netscape.com = popups

netscape + all affiliates = shítëware

Like floater said, netscape.com != mozilla.org

I use Mozilla Firebird. It's the Browser part of Mozilla, ie without all the plugins and email clients, and it beats IE in every way.

I find IE slow, troublesome, and far too eager to show you where to browse as opposed to you showing IT where to browse.

IE is also far too open to attack. The amount of websites I've come across that crash IE, but present no problem whatsoever to Mozilla.

03-11-2003 7:24pm

netscape + all affiliates = AOL owned shítëware

Phoenix (spelling?) I used to use but since i have reformatted my machine...nah...cant be arsed putting it back on...

but i've never found a site that doesn't work in ie but does in a competitor

Disco!

Kai · 06-11-2003 7:46pm

Originally posted by Floater

Mozilla isn’t owned by Netscape/AOL. It is a cooperative effort like openoffice.org.

Floater

Eh according to this page http://www.mozilla.org/fear.html
Mozilla is owned by AOL.

Floater · 07-11-2003 4:36pm

Originally posted by Frugu
Eh according to this page http://www.mozilla.org/fear.html
Mozilla is owned by AOL.

Rubbish!

Paragraph 2 of your linked item:

"The thing to keep in mind here is that mozilla.org is not Netscape, and never has been. This is something that many people don't understand, or don't believe, but as we described in our original mission statement, the Mozilla Organization has a different agenda from Netscape. We were chartered to guide the open development of the Mozilla browser, and that is what we have done"

Netscape are benefiting from innovations that people who
get involved with the Mozilla project because they can if they wish incorporate them into their own Netscape products. In return Moz is getting its project coordination staff costs paid by Netscape. If Netscape/AOL went out of business in the morning, Mozilla.org would almost certainly continue.

Floater

red vex · 07-11-2003 5:00pm

i use ie, opera and firebird and i find that opera is the fastest that firebird is the most stable and that ie is most supported
i cant use firebird on the wireless lan in college or for bankin so i alway find myself having to go back to ie. opera is great except for that stupid banner

Floater · 07-11-2003 6:30pm

More Internet Explorer security issues:

http://www.secunia.com/advisories/10157/

Floater

swiss · 12-11-2003 9:34pm

I'm using Opera 7.11 at the moment, it took me a while but I've finally weaned myself away from my dependancy on IE6.

Opera is faster, is infinitely more customisable, and is more standards compliant than IE 6. IE has a great deal more support than any other browser, because everybody uses it. Hence more websites have become lax with standards compliance, because hey, as long as it works with IE, it's fine, right?! I also like using Opera because it doesn't give me that dirty feeling that using a microsoft product would.

I can also identify this browser as MSIE6, so for the moment I really haven't had any security issues. The ad can be a little annoying for some, but I don't mind it really. Better than seeing the million of popups you would get on IE.

scojones · 13-11-2003 10:12am

Those ads can be removed afaik, but don't ask me how it's done

10 reasons why Mozilla is more secure than Explorer

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