Bad hair day for alternative browser users There's bad news for users of alternative browsers this Friday, with both Opera and Firefox subject to security vulnerabilities. A trio of faults in Opera create a means to construct cross-site scripting attacks and other mischief. The worst flaw of the bunch involves the possibility that external news readers or email clients …
Opera released 9.24 addressing the issues on Wednesday so your title is somewhat misleading. It would, of course, be interesting to know how long it took from the bugs being identified to the new version being released. This is a bit different from the usual IE bug reports which usually refer to still open flaws or even new bugs based on previous fixes.
Opera 9.5 will beta next week.
"How long does an IE user have to wait for a fix?"
Assuming the flaw is addressed at all, it will be exploited the day after Patch Tuesday, and not fixed until the following month's Patch Tuesday.
Or it may just never be fixed, like so many long-standing IE flaws. Google for "unpatched IE flaw" and you'll get almost 41,000 hits. substitute "firefox" for "IE" and add "-IE" and you'll get 5,800. "unpatched opera flaw -IE" gets you 6,420 hits.
Some really basic and deceptive statistical analysis thus shows that Internet Explorer is 700% more dangerous than Firefox and 638% more dangerous than Opera.
Hmmm, I don't think Dan Goodin is spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt by running a story about security updates to two browsers.
The fact is that both Opera and Firefox browsers get vulns fixed much more quickly than does IE. When I launched Firefox this morning (to read El Reg) it prompted me to install 2.0.0.8 - no fuss, job done.
This item appears on the same day as The Register's story ("IE + RealPlayer = Security hole") about yet another exploitable interaction between IE and other apps - and, once again, Active X is at the heart of it.
The story concludes: "Another option is to use Firefox as your primary browser, preferably along with the NoScript add-on." Sound advice, IMO.
I fully understand why the vast majority of non-tech home users browse with IE - it is the default browser when they buy a Windowes machine and no-one tells them there are better, safer alternatives. But I am astonished that genuinely tech-savvy users - as I presume most Register readers to be - champion IE over the alternatives.
I like how Opera works, but until
it can actually open my Yahoo Mail and not crash it's no go for me.
I know Yahoo lies in bed with M$, but none the less
my email is with them and I can't be arsed to move.
I'll continue using IE for the time being.
It's easy to use. Web developers always make
sure their pages render with it. I can't remember
the last time I actually had a security problem with it
which is more than I can say for firefox, for all the updates
both of them get.
As a developer I know Firefox is probably better and possibly
more secure (until you start bolting on 101 bad plugins),
however as a user IE always takes the day for me.
Alot of firefox users are to eager to poo poo it but haven't used IE
full time in years.
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