The real vulnerability that IE has that firefox doesn't is the way it
supports scripting. In IE you can go to a page and never be prompted
anything and have 30mb of crapware installed. Firefox allows you to
control what type of scripting you want to allow. That is a major
benefit however you shouldn't feel safe in a ff enviorement either. For
work all I do is research malicious URL's and Malware and we mainly use
FF when we look at pages however there are tons of ways firefox can be
abused as well but its just not so common that's why its safer. If
firefox hits 50% market share you will see complaints about firefox as
well and then people will be raving about opera. The new IE should be
pretty good and someone who worked with me just went to Microsoft to
work on that project.

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eli Allen
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 6:10 AM
To: The Hardware List
Subject: Re: [H] Dvorak's take on Intel-Apple

What vulnerabilities does ActiveX have that FF doesn't?  In both cases
you a 
prompted if you want to install, and in both cases if you say yes you
get 
infected.

Eli

----- Original Message ----- 
> At 09:39 AM 16/06/2005, Eli Allen wrote:
>>Just because it doesn't support ActiveX doesn't mean anything.  As I
said, 
>>spyware requires IE
>
> Except that it avoids all the ActiveX nasties out there.  Which is 
> currently the main infection vector, as I understand it.
>
>>is nothing inherent about ActiveX other then it being the popular way
of 
>>doing things so if another interface becomes popular I'm sure spyware
will 
>>take advantage of it.
>
> It depends on how the new interface is written.  So far, the FF team
has 
> worked to remove vulnerabilities whilst MS has not (at least not as
fast.) 
> I recall that last year MS' solution to ActiveX attack was to tell
people 
> to disallow any ActiveX controls - including ones from MS.  Not a
pretty 
> sight when a company can't even guarantee it's own controls are a)safe
or 
> b) actually from itself.
>
> But as FF becomes more popular, it will become more of a target.  Just
as 
> Apple or Linux will as they grow market share.
>
> T
> 


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