07/02/2008, 10:45am, EDT
Wednesday, July 2nd
Safari #3 in browser share, #2 in security
Apple's Safari web browser remains in third place in terms of adoption, a new study reveals. According to results from the middle of June, Safari usage accounts for approximately 3.4 percent of the market, at 48 million daily users. Mozilla's Firefox is in second place with 227 million users (16.1 percent), while Microsoft's Internet Explorer is by far dominant, with 1.1 billion users (78.3 percent). The only major browser below Safari is Opera, which has 11 million users, or just 0.8 percent.
Safari fares better in terms of security analysis however, as the study notes that between December 2007 and June 2008, Safari users were the second-most likely to use the latest version of their browser, at 65.3 percent. This is considered to be extremely important in terms of security, as browser updates frequently close vulnerabilities that otherwise expose a computer to easy attack.
Internet Explorer is considered the worst threat in this regard, as between January 2007 and June 2008 only 47.6 had the most recent release, to the extent that some users kept IE6 after IE7 became available. By contrast 56.1 percent of Opera users were up-to-date, and Firefox faired the best, with 83.3 percent having the most recent release.
The Safari and Firefox figures are attributed to well-implemented auto-updating mechanisms, which ensure that people receive upgrades shortly after they are posted.
Filed under: security, software, Apple
Other story tags: Safari, Firefox, browsers, Internet Explorer, Opera
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haha ie
FTA: "The Safari and Firefox figures are attributed to well-implemented auto-updating mechanisms, which ensure that people receive upgrades shortly after they are posted."
What does that say about IE, which has the most widespread auto-updating mechanism, known commonly as Windows Updates? I don't know about the rest of you, but when there is a FF or Safari update, it asks if I want to install it, just like Windows Updates does with IE.
Windows Update
Our company is very slow to roll out new updates, so I'm still running IE6 (& Office 2000). That could account for a majority of the out-of-date users.
questionable
I'm not sure if I agree that using things like the version of browsers being used is a good measure of security. Although in general it's best to use the latest version of a given browser and/or OS, it by means is the definitive criteria for safety.
There are plenty of times when an updated version of a product has security holes or problems in it that the previous version lacked. I mean, if say, all Windows users suddenly started using IE7, that would somehow put IE at the top of the heap in security? Just because a larger % of people are using it over older browsers? That makes no sense.
re: questionable
And one could argue that using older browsers is more secure, because no one would still be trying to hack into security holes in, say IE 3.