Washington, August 14: The NSS Labs, an independent security product testing lab, has found Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 to be the most secure browser to date.
The Texas-based facility tested Apple Safari 4, Google Chrome 2, Internet Explorer (IE) 8, Mozilla Firefox 3, and Opera 10 beta over a two-week period in July and released the results on Thursday.
The NSS Labs research indicated that IE 8 was the best browser in blocking phishing and malware attacks.
However, Firefox 3 equaled IE 8 in catching “social-engineering” phishing attacks.
“Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3 were the most consistent in the high level of protection they offered,” the NSS Labs study said.
When it came to blocking malicious software, malware, IE 8 caught 81 percent of the “live threats” as compared with the 54-percent finish by the second-place Firefox.
Apple’s highly-anticipated Safari 4 did not live up to expectations when it was revealed that in every test the browser was among the bottom three.
In a test based on 126 validated URLs, “the average phishing URL catch rate for browsers over the entire 14-day test period ranged from 2% for Safari 4 to 83% for Windows Internet Explorer 8,” the test report said.
In another test based on 608 potentially malicious URLs, Safari 4 managed to block 27% only doing a better job than Google Chrome (7%) and Opera 10 (1%).
—–Agencies