Firefox 2.0 Trumps IE7 In Phish-Fighting
The other day I reported (in Danish) that Firefox won over IE7 in a test of free anti-phishing solutions. Now software testing firm SmartWare has released a report that shows that the phishing filter in Firefox is soo much better than the one in IE7.
Summary
- Firefox 2 Phishing Protection is more effective than the Microsoft Phishing Filter in Internet Explorer 7.
- Firefox 2 offers users a choice between local and remote protection modes.
- Firefox 2 Phishing Protection uses local mode by default, which protects user privacy.
- Even in local mode, Firefox 2 Phishing Protection is significantly more effective than the Microsoft Phishing Filter in Internet Explorer 7, operating in either mode.
Read more about the test
Back to the numbers: The testers found that with IE7's auto-check turned off, the browser blocked less than two percent of all phishing sites thrown at it. With the phone-home option turned on, IE blocked 66 percent of the scam sites. In its default configuration, Firefox 2.0 blocked close to 79 percent of all phishing sites during the test period; with the "Ask Google" option enabled, Mozilla's browser blocked nearly 82 percent of all scam pages.
Read more and the report itself.
Also read about the built-in Phishing Protection in Firefox 2
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2 Comments
I thought Firefox was supposed to update it's built-in list once every half-hour or so. If that is the case, why was the "Ask Google" option 3 percent more effective?
Comment by George Ocay at November 15, 2006 02:23 AM | Permalink
The complete set of URLs tested, the test results, and test methodology can be found at: http://www.mozilla.org/security/phishing-test-results.html