Recommend me a browser! Because malware is annoying, and browser wars are confusing.

[Roc Ness]

See, apparently using Internet Explorer, which I have used for longer than I can remember, is about as safe as sitting in a family sedan on high seas. In fact, I think I've given several friends heart attacks just by mentioning that I use it.

((Now, before you chastise me on safe internet usage, I should state that I am well aware of internet safety. I don't follow fishy links, I don't visit unsafe or strange websites and I don't download anything. I pretty much only use the internet for checking on forums, reading webcomics, and catching up on friends. Wherever I'm getting virus problems from, you have my word that it isn't from safety negligence on my part.))

Anyway, well, I've heard of other browsers. Chrome, Firefox, Opera. There might be more that I haven't heard of. However, searching for advice on the internet was no help, because professionals all talk in different directions, studies rarely agree with each other, and communities have a habit of fighting amongst each other that makes information hard to read. I.e. browser wars are confusing.

So I tried out Chrome for myself, but had the misfortune of swiftly picking up some kind of trojan (Medfos.B?) that decided to lurk in the Extensions folder in the Chrome files, and the only way I could get rid of it for good was by removing Chrome itself.

I now officially have no idea what I am doing in terms of looking for browsers. Plus, I now have one final annoying instance of Medfos.B calling itself chromeupdater.crx that didn't perish with the rest, and is, annoyingly, making MSE run through hoops every 5 minutes, refusing to be deleted for good.

So.

What browser could playgrounders recommend me, based on your experiences with them? I'm looking simply for the most secure browser overall, and I don't really care about bonus features or speed. Is Firefox better? Should I give Chrome another chance? Does anyone know anything about Opera, or other browsers?

And if anybody has successfully dealt with Medfos.B, well, advice would be a great help too!

[memnarch]

First things first, have you run an antivirus to try and remove it?

Browsers, they're all pretty good, but Firefox will have the most customizability, followed by Chrome. Opera doesn't have much, if any, plugins for changing the browser. Gotta make sure you only install plugins from the source website though. (like mozilla for firefox)


I feel it just comes down to personal preference for which browser you use.

Me, I use Firefox with Adblocker (turned off on websites I like), NoScript, and Ghostery, to block out most rogue elements I might accidentally find.

[nedz]

I have IE, FireFox and Chrome installed. I normally use FireFox.

The problem could be your firewall ?
I have an ADSL router, as a hard firewall, and a Soft fire wall in the form of McAfee. There is the Win7 stuff as well, but I wouldn't rely on that too much.

The problem could also be your OS ?
What are you using ?
Is it up to date, in terms of maintenance ?

[Rawhide]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with IE. It's a fine browser in many respects. And all browsers should be considered just as unsecure as each other. Make sure you keep your browsers, antivirus, and firewall software up to date with all the latest security patches and definitions.


Myth: Some browsers are more secure.
Not according to Sophos. The company considers all browsers equally at risk because all browsers are essentially an execution environment for JavaScript, the Web’s programming language — and the key component in an attack by malware authors. Many attacks also leverage plug-ins, which run across all browsers. And don’t think the lesser-known browsers are less of a target by hackers or virus implantation experts. The more popular browsers simply get more publicity about unpatched exploits. But it’s the unpublicized exploits you should be most concerned about.

Source: http://www.intelfreepress.com/news/1...-myths-busted/


Myth: Using a secure browser like Chrome offers better protection.
Fact: Chrome is subject to exploits just like any other browser and the more popular it becomes, the more it will be targeted.

Source: http://www.sophos.com/en-us/medialib...owsingwpna.pdf
Or: http://www.sophos.com/en-us/security...ity-myths.aspx

[Yora]

Most of the virus protection falls to Antivirus software and firewalls. Without those, no browser offers serious protection.

I would say the two alternatives are Firefox or Chrome, which I guess are both equally good.
However, one is produced by google who is as much into datamining and online monopolies as Facebook. So I would say "Don't be evil" and use Firefox instead.

[Aedilred]

I haven't used IE in about six years so I can't comment on whether the current version is any good. Previous versions of IE have annoyed me to death but I've heard the current version is better.

I prefer Firefox, which has a similar interface but a few slightly more handy tools and options. It does still have its moments where I want to throttle it, but I'm happy enough. People tell me I should switch to Chrome, but I've never really tried it.

As Yora says, since FF is open-source, I feel slightly better about using it than a browser owned by a large corporation. Practically, I don't know how much difference that makes.

[noparlpf]

My opinions on the common ones: Opera is boring, Chrome isn't really my thing, Safari is bad, Internet Explorer is worse.
I use Firefox, but Chrome is also pretty good by most accounts.

[Hbgplayer]

Well, I used IE forever, and (thought) that I never had a problem with it, until my computer decided to stop running IE one day, so I now use Chrome 80% of the time, and Firefox for that 20% that doesn't support Chrome, such as WebAssign.
I like it so much better, as it always runs so much faster than IE did.

[Neftren]

Chrome and Firefox are pretty much the de-facto standard right now.

While I don't use Opera personally, it has some of the best features out there (e.g. built-in IRC, torrent client, webserver, etc.), and is probably the most web-standards compatible browser depending on how you compare it with Chrome. Sadly, most people seem to be neglecting the -o- extensions when putting websites together.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I use a version of Chrome called Iron, from SRWare, that basically takes out all of the "Google is Watching You" stuff.

[Sallera]

The fewer people there are using IE, the happier we web developers will be. (Ok, v9 isn't actually all that bad any more, but with much of the Windows market still on XP, that doesn't help a lot.) As Rawhide says, client-side security isn't as much of a problem any more as long as you've got a recent browser; it's standards compliance that's the issue.

Between Firefox and Chrome, it's pretty much just a matter of personal preference. Firefox is more customizable, with a nice selection of addons, and it's the one I use myself; Chrome is a bit more polished, and does little things like diagonal font rendering better.

[Inglenook]

I refuse to use Internet Explorer on principle because Microsoft goes out of its way to not follow web standards. Oh, and unless you're in their target demographic (50+, computer-illiterate grandparents) they don't give a crap about instituting the features you want/need.

Netscape? Lolz. It hasn't been supported since 2008. I think there might be like one deranged hermit somewhere in the Andes still using it, but the rest of the world has moved on.

Lots of people like Chrome, but it's laggy and a memory hog on my computer for whatever reason. And then there's the whole "Google are soulless data-vampires" thing.

I went through an Opera phase a few years back, but it offers nothing in the way of customizability, and many of my frequently visited websites didn't render correctly in it. And most infuriatingly: there's no "tag" support for bookmarks.

Firefox is a memory hog as well, and occasionally glitchy. But it's almost infinitely customizable because there are so many add-ons. It's not perfect, but it suits my needs better than any of the others.

[Riverdance]

I use a version of Chrome called Iron, from SRWare, that basically takes out all of the "Google is Watching You" stuff.

Care to explain further? Everyone tells me how great chrome is but I could never bring myself to use it for that very reason.

[grimbold]

Care to explain further? Everyone tells me how great chrome is but I could never bring myself to use it for that very reason.

i was just about to ask this

occasionally i HAVE to use chrome because firefox is being glitchy

but really... google scares me

[Pie Guy]

i was just about to ask this

occasionally i HAVE to use chrome because firefox is being glitchy

but really... google scares me

http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php

I got it yesterday after hearing about it on this thread, it basically is Chrome, but with more privacy.

Edit: Unless, of course, they're lying to our faces.

[Lord Loss]

I use Pale Moon. It's not one of the common browsers, but it works for me, and the desktop icon is pwetty...

[Heliomance]

I use Chrome over Firefox for two reasons. First, I find it (marginally) less memory-hoggy; I tend to keep upwards of 15 tabs open at all times and Firefox just eats all my system resources. Second, and more importantly () the alt+s shortcut to Submit Post doesn't work in Firefox. It just opens the History menu. I use alt+s whenever I post to pretty much any forum, and it not working drives me mad.

[Eldariel]

Most of the virus protection falls to Antivirus software and firewalls. Without those, no browser offers serious protection.

Well, add-ons do help tho; I'm not sure which browsers NoScript is available for currently but it's really the #1 thing for safe browsing.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I use Chrome over Firefox for two reasons. First, I find it (marginally) less memory-hoggy; I tend to keep upwards of 15 tabs open at all times and Firefox just eats all my system resources. Second, and more importantly () the alt+s shortcut to Submit Post doesn't work in Firefox. It just opens the History menu. I use alt+s whenever I post to pretty much any forum, and it not working drives me mad.

Shortcuts not working isn't necessarily a browser problem, actually, it's possibly a configuration and/or OS issue. I use Firefox and Alt-S works just fine for me; when I tried Chrome, I couldn't use it for more than a day or so because on forums Ctrl-B opened History and Ctrl-I didn't work, making posting in PbPs exceptionally annoying. If that's the only thing keeping you off Firefox, look into changing the shortcut settings and you might be able to fix it.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with IE. It's a fine browser in many respects.

Correction: There's absolutely nothing wrong with the latest IE. Well, okay, there are plenty of things wrong with it, but the problems in IE 9 aren't problems that the average user would notice; it's improved in leaps and bounds over the past two iterations. Most of the IE hate on the internet is due to techies, programmers, and web developers having to deal with IE 6 support and with IE 7 being not very standards-compatible, and honestly a lot of people saying IE is completely unusable are just parroting what they've heard. Any other issues with IE are the same issues with any Microsoft software, so OP, if you're already using Windows, IE 9 shouldn't be too objectionable.

And all browsers should be considered just as unsecure as each other. Make sure you keep your browsers, antivirus, and firewall software up to date with all the latest security patches and definitions.

Myth: Some browsers are more secure.
Not according to Sophos. The company considers all browsers equally at risk because all browsers are essentially an execution environment for JavaScript, the Web’s programming language — and the key component in an attack by malware authors. Many attacks also leverage plug-ins, which run across all browsers. And don’t think the lesser-known browsers are less of a target by hackers or virus implantation experts. The more popular browsers simply get more publicity about unpatched exploits. But it’s the unpublicized exploits you should be most concerned about.

Source: http://www.intelfreepress.com/news/1...-myths-busted/

No one web browser is inherently more secure than others, true, but different browsers have different security advantages. IE is baked into Windows so its vulnerabilities have more impact on your system, but because Microsoft has to support enterprise distros it's usually good about patching holes in IE. Firefox has plenty of add-ons to block various things and customize security, but all of the interactions between add-ons and the occasional breakage between versions can mean that security holes open unexpectedly. Chrome tends to get fixes issued extremely quickly, but as one of the newer browsers on the market it doesn't always play well with antviruses and such.

Basically, all browsers are vulnerable, but they have different kinds of vulnerabilities, so it comes down to what risks you're willing to put up with and which are deal-breakers. There's no one "most secure" browser out there, just different levels of insecurity.


OP, if I were to sum up all the main browsers in a word, here's how I'd do it:

• IE is ubiquitous. Lots of computers use Windows, so if you want something that'll be familiar everywhere you use it and work well with pretty much every site, IE is good.
• Firefox is customizable. There are more add-ons out there than you'll ever need for every little thing you can think of, so if you like tweaking programs until they work exactly the way you want them to, Firefox is good.
• Chrome is fast. A bunch of different features make Chrome the fastest browser out there currently, so if what you care about is speedy page load times and responsiveness, Chrome is good.
• Opera is integrated. As mentioned above Opera has things like IRC clients built-in and has lots of other handy features, so if you want a browser that does lots of cool and useful things out of the box, Opera is good.

[valadil]

[list][*]IE is ubiquitous. Lots of computers use Windows, so if you want something that'll be familiar everywhere you use it and work well with pretty much every site, IE is good.

IE is the least ubiquitous of the major browsers! Chrome and Firefox both run on Windows, Mac, and Linux. If you want to be prepared for any system, IE is not the way to go.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

IE is the least ubiquitous of the major browsers! Chrome and Firefox both run on Windows, Mac, and Linux. If you want to be prepared for any system, IE is not the way to go.

It is ubiquitous on Windows. I don't want to make too many assumptions about the OP, but someone who primarily uses IE and doesn't have much exposure to other browsers has likely only used Windows, isn't likely to use Mac, Linux, or BSD for work- or school-related purposes, and probably isn't going to need to do anything on someone else's computer besides print something, post to Facebook, check something on Google Maps, etc. If that person wants to ensure that they only have to learn how to use one browser to use their friends' or workplace's Windows computers for fairly basic tasks, IE is a good choice. If you really want to ensure that browsers match everywhere, you probably carry around Firefox Portable or a Linux live CD and/or do a bunch of your stuff in the cloud, but that's overkill for most people.

[LaughingGnoll]

Not to prod on your personal space, but the last time I saw Medfos.b in a system it was because of some corrupt data downloaded from the ... more questionable side of the internet. And your fix isn't really the best one, though if it worked it worked.

Personally I use (and love) Chrome. It's fast, fairly customizable, and the various extensions I've found and use are very reliable.

[Yora]

And that's why they are called viruses. They spread by jumping from one infected system or file to others. There are certainly more dangerous places than others, but the only way to get sure to not catch anything is to unplug the internet cable and remove all CD and disc drives.

[The LOBster]

I always, always use Firefox. Mainly 'cuz Google's kinda started breaking their promise of "Don't be evil" in the last few years.

[Riverdance]

I use Chrome over Firefox for two reasons. First, I find it (marginally) less memory-hoggy; I tend to keep upwards of 15 tabs open at all times and Firefox just eats all my system resources. Second, and more importantly () the alt+s shortcut to Submit Post doesn't work in Firefox. It just opens the History menu. I use alt+s whenever I post to pretty much any forum, and it not working drives me mad.

Does this work on Mac, PC, or both? It certainly doesn't seem to work on safari (which is terrible by the way).

[lesser_minion]

If you're using the most recent released version of any of the major browsers, then you can safely ignore anyone who tries to claim that you're somehow using the 'wrong' browser. Despite your friends' reactions, this is no less true of Internet Explorer than it is of anything else.

((Now, before you chastise me on safe internet usage, I should state that I am well aware of internet safety. I don't follow fishy links, I don't visit unsafe or strange websites and I don't download anything. I pretty much only use the internet for checking on forums, reading webcomics, and catching up on friends. Wherever I'm getting virus problems from, you have my word that it isn't from safety negligence on my part.))

I know you don't want to be chastised over safe internet usage, but if this is all you do, it's not good enough. Malware doesn't come solely from 'dodgy' sites and 'fishy' links. It's quite common for malware distributors to operate by hacking perfectly legitimate sites.

One particularly important step you've missed is keeping your system up to date. Many people seem to find this annoying, but it's quite effective. Malware that can infect a fully-patched system without going through the user is extremely rare.

Your operating system, web browser, and some of the most common plugins (Flash, Java, and Silverlight) can all update themselves automatically. Sometimes, you'll need to close your web browser or restart your computer in order to apply an update -- this should be done promptly.

Other software might come with an auto-updater, or you might have to update it manually. You need to keep anything that you use over the internet up to date -- mail clients, IM clients, VOIP clients, IRC clients, and file sharing software. For other software, staying up to date isn't as crucial, but it's still probably worth doing.

There are also a few pieces of software that can help -- some antivirus software will warn you when you're using out of date software, and Secunia have a freeware app that does basically nothing else.

[noparlpf]

Oh--for Macs, the current iterations of Firefox and Microsoft Silverlight are having issues which result in things like Netflix not working. I don't know if that also affects Chrome or Safari or whatever else. I think the previous version of Silverlight (4?) still works, though.
Ran into this when my friend said her Netflix wasn't working, so I looked it up.

[nedz]

Some stats about current market share of the various browsers.

Enjoy

[lsfreak]

I use Firefox for two reasons. The first is NoScript - I have never had any malware/virus/hacking problems on my computer while it was active. Chrome has a NoScript-like thing but it's much, much less user-friendly, at least last I looked. The other is AlwaysOnTop, because I like having an addon to force Firefox to the front without having to use another program as well, especially for watching Netflix while goofing off in WoW (which, last I checked, was the only way to do it with Chrome).

It can be a memory hog though, especially if you have a tabbing problem and leave it running for days without restarting >.> And it will have the occasional crash, but it saves your tabs for you so it's not a big deal.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Note that, as with the "IE is terrible, don't use it" meme, the "Firefox has memory leaks/is a memory hog" thing is also version- and OS-dependent, and with Firefox in particular can be highly dependent on which add-ons you have and which versions thereof. I have a friend who uses Firefox 15 on Windows 7 and has to close it when playing games because having it open along with TF2 or WoW uses too much memory; I'm using Firefox 11 on Linux and have had one Firefox session running, with no fewer than 3 tabs open at once, since I last restarted my laptop over 3 months ago.

As with many "Which program should I use for X?" questions, OP, a lot of performance and other factors will depend on your particular computer setup and usage habits, so you might want to download all the browsers you're looking at and give them all a try.