IE9 is the most secure browser according to NSS Labs tests

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According to a couple of reports that the company dedicated to security issues in the network  NSS Labs  has made available to anyone who wants them,  Internet Explorer 9 is the most secure browser  out of all its major competitors, Chrome, Firefox and Safari ( Opera does not appear). Let’s look at the data a little more detail.

Different versions for which tests have been performed are Safari 5, Chrome (versions 15 through 19), Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox (versions 7 through 13) in a  virtual machine with Windows 7 for each of them . There are the latest versions because the study, although the reports have been distributed now, took place between the months of December 2011 and May 2012 (particularly during a period of 175 days).

The analysis focuses on blocking malware and fraud by click. In the first case have been used  84,396 active malicious URLs  in the four browsers, reaching 750,000 tests conducted by browser (the total is 3,038,324 tests). The results surprised some, especially the little security they offer both Firefox and Safari and Chrome showing irregularity. We can see in the following graph:

Get IE9 malware blocking average 95% , while Firefox and Safari do not exceed 6%. The Chrome locking ratio varies from 13% to 74%, according to the report due to the constantly changing tactics of protection that have been taking place between the developers of malware and malicious code generated. It’s funny how these changes are not reflected in the different versions of Firefox so accused.

Furthermore, regarding click fraud, the second report throws us this chart include:

The green bar corresponds to the ratio of blocking URLs with click fraud, while the blue bar refers to other types of malware.  Again Internet Explorer 9 yields the best blocking percentages . In general, the results make sense when compared to the previous graph.Here the funny thing is that in Chrome, the difference between blocking click fraud and other types of malware is much more pronounced than in the rest (though over by little, Firefox and Safari).

If you want to see the full reports you have only to download via the links you leave at the end of the post, but as these tests what does seem clear is that  IE9 is a much safer browser than the rest . It would be interesting to perform these analyzes again with the latest versions of all browsers and see if its developers are stepping or continue limping here, and the inclusion of Opera.