OT: Non-Microsoft browsers are most secure choice

[Antonio Aparicio]

http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp? 
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The security issues in Internet Explorer have highlighted the need for  
companies to think about supporting other web browsers on their  
customer-facing websites to control the security threat.
A number of security bodies and industry experts, including the US  
government-backed CERT, and non-profit Sans Institute, have urged  
companies to consider Microsoft alternatives. These include Netscape,  
Opera, Mozilla and Apple's Safari.
Richard Brain, technical director at security consultant ProCheckup,  
said: "It is a good idea to use other, safer browsers like Firefox by  
default, and the more complex, buggy Internet Explorer to access those  
sites which will only work with IE.
"IE is an overly complex bit of software�that should really get back to  
its simpler roots as a web browser, so that Microsoft developers can  
simplify it and remove its security holes," he said.
"Online businesses that follow this advice may have to re-engineer  
their websites to make them fully accessible to non-Microsoft  
browsers."
Phil Cracknell, security consultant at NetSecurity, advises his clients  
to use non-Microsoft web servers, based on Unix, Linux, and Netscape,  
together with Microsoft IIS, to confound the hackers.
"More obscure�operating systems�will get hacked less," Cracknell said.
He added that Microsoft should not be vilified, because it has provided  
what users demanded.
"We wanted interactive stuff and to plug things into the browser; and  
there's a cost to that: there will be ports open.
"The Windows environment, while it is slated for OS vulnerabilities,  
has had to go through a hardening process, and I think Microsoft has  
stepped up to the mark," Cracknell said.
Analysts said it will be possible, although not effortless, to develop  
interactive, animated e-commerce sites that can be viewed on other  
browser platforms.
Bola Rotiba, senior analyst for software development strategy at Ovum,  
said it is a myth that websites will not work well in non-Microsoft  
browsers.
"Why should companies lose any functionality? There is nothing to say  
the animations shouldn't exist [in alternative browsers]," Rotiba said.
Rotiba added that translating the site for different browsers can be  
straightforward. "It depends on how much abstraction has been done to  
build the site. HTML is not an issue; bog-standard HTML can be  
optimised easily.
"The questions to ask are what is the site doing: is it dynamic or  
static? If it uses dynamic HTML and cascading style sheets, it will  
take more work," Rotiba said.
If the site uses a high degree of scripting languages like PHP and CFML  
(ColdFusion Markup Language), developers will also have their hands  
full, she said.
"Tools like Macromedia MX, and Dreamweaver MX allow you to produce a  
site for every platform available. But if you've written the scripts in  
something like CFML, there are not many tools available to translate  
the interactive, dynamic part," Rotiba said.