Browsers have made leaps and bounds when it comes to security in the past four years. No longer do you hear about major security flaws in current versions of Internet browsers being held as responsible for the next big security breach.Firefox, Chrome & IE11: The Truth About Which is the Most Secure.
Accompanying the notion that browsers have changed is that the most secure web browser has also changed.Let’s explore the security features of Internet Explorer 11, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome to understand how this might be true.
Mozilla Firefox’s Security
Firefox’s greatest strength lies in the ease that new plugins can be added. This has given rise to necessary tools like Adblock and NoScript, which are some of the standard security plugin staples.
Couple this with a solid engine and you have something that gives users the options to protect themselves from various exploits, cookie hijacking and browser hacks.
Firefox has enjoyed the title of the most secure Internet browser for years now, but recent events have shown that it may not be the king anymore. The problem with Firefox is that the team in charge of maintaining it seems to have relaxed from their original goals to make something bigger, better and safer.
As a sign of protest, hackers have begun targeting this browser with software that utilizes exploits available publicly in the “Known Vulnerabilities” list on Firefox’s website. While updates are enabled automatically and this leaves vulnerabilities working for only as short of a time as the next version update, users may not know when they’re secured due to the lack of upkeep with recent change logs
Internet Explorer 11
Since Internet Explorer 10, Microsoft has worked to secure Internet Explorer with the less-is-more ideology. The often attacked Vector Markup Language (VML) support is one such feature that was promptly removed, which in turned gave hackers less avenues to exploit in the software.
The thinnest layer of security in Internet Explorer 11 remains at the level of plugins like Adobe Flash and WebGL. Both have been attack numerous times by hackers, which in turn is one reason why Microsoft has cited WebGL as unsupported and integrated automatic updates for Adobe Flash.
In Internet Explorer 10 and 11, security has been increased through the use of certified drivers and applications coupled with a more intelligent design that prevents user data from being nonchalantly strewn about. Even when it is, it’s securely encrypted.
While Internet Explorer 11 has increased security, the greatest leaps are exclusive for Windows 8.1 users. WebCryptoAPI offers basic cryptography support for JavaScript scripts.
Google Chrome
Google Chrome was designed from the ground up with two things in mind: stability and security. With little surprise, this leaves Chrome as the most secure web browser due to a number of features that Google has implemented.
The most important feature to note is Chrome’s ability to sandbox not just pages or scripts, but entire tabs and plugins. This prevents malicious functions and applications from performing things that operate outside of what good code should.
Furthermore, Chrome comes with automatic updates and safe browsing features. The latter prevents users from visiting malicious sites by preventing the page from loading and popping up with a red warning page instead.
Chrome is also one of the few browsers capable of notifying you when it’s been hijacked.
These features leave Google Chrome as the most secure web browser not only of the three reviewed on this page but also of every browser out there.