[Via Yahoo! News: Technology]
Is spyware slowing down your surfing? If so, you may want to join millions of others who are hopping off the Microsoft Internet Explorer merry-go-round and jumping on the Firefox browser bandwagon.According to Web analytics firm WebSideStory, at the beginning of June over 95.48 percent of American Web surfers were using IE, but by October’s end, that percentage had fallen to 92.86. Where did those users go? Most of them apparently switched to Mozilla and its open-source derivative browser, Firefox.
“It’s the first time we’ve seen IE’s market share decline in the six years we’ve covered it,” says WebSideStory CEO Jeff Lunsford. “It looks like people are switching at a rate of about half a percentage point a month.”
Many analysts have speculated that surfers are switching in order to avoid the security headaches and spyware that are plaguing IE. Indeed, Firefox, which was downloaded one million times in the first 24 hours after version 1.0’s release, does not allow ActiveX programs to run or let so-called trusted sites circumvent security settings. That’s how the program is able to avoid spyware infections, says Firefox director of engineering Chris Hofmann.
I wonder how long it will take until also FireFox will become a ‘sitting duck’ for spyware and things like hacker attacks. Like in a small article I blogged about a while ago (here), I think it’s simply too early to draw any conclusions. Meanwhile there could very well be an advantage in using other browsers than IE, but is this simply a matter of time until the bad guys catch up ?
