Firefox, Safari hit by fewer flaws than IE in 2006

[onehandle]

Mozilla’s Firefox suffered from 26 percent fewer vulnerabilities in the second half of 2006 than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, a security company’s research said Monday.

According to Symantec’s tally, 40 Firefox vulnerabilities were disclosed between August and December 2006; Internet Explorer (IE), meanwhile, was hit with 54 bugs. Opera and Safari — the browser Apple bundles with Mac OS X — had four flaws each.

For all of 2006, however, the numbers were nearly neck and neck: Firefox was nailed by 87 flaws during the 12 months, IE by 92.

The trend line also put Firefox in the better light. The open-source browser had 15 percent fewer vulnerabilities in the second half of the year compared to the first, while IE’s total increased 42 percent during the period.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/03/20/browser/index.php