JWL.Freakwitch.net

September 21, 2005

Firefox, IE, and Browser security

There were reports floating around recently (that came from Symantec, the anti-virus company that profits from the insecure state of proprietary software) saying that Firefox has more security problems than Internet Explorer.

This may be fact.

But it misses the point entirely. To read that statement as a condemnation of Firefox (or more broadly, of any Free software) presupposes that some software will not have bugs or security problems. And that just ain't so. All software has bugs and security problems. Period, end of report. The question is, how are those bugs and security holes responded to?

As this story points out, the fact that more holes are being found -- and efficiently patched -- with Firefox and other Free software applications is a strength, not a weakness.

It's just not a strength that is easily profitted-upon. Therefore, corporations who depend on profit will throw more obfuscation out there around this issue.

Bottom line: nothing is more secure than Free software. Period.

3 comment(s):

Any comment on the new ad-free Opera?

-c in cleveland

By Anonymous, at September 21, 2005 6:04 PM

Not so much. Opera is pretty much off my radar. I like Firefox, that's the browser I use most of the time, and when I'm not using Firefox, I have Konqueror. I see little or no need to check out Opera because it is not Free Software.

And if there is a Free software app that does what I need it to do, my own ethical computing code demands that I use that and not consider a proprietary alternative.

Perhaps if Opera would Free their code and make the source code available, I'd consider it.

By JWL, at September 22, 2005 1:02 PM