Firefox better phishdetector than IE, which is better phishdetector than Firefox

ACCORDING TO a test regarding browser security conducted by Smartware Technologies, Mozilla Firefox 2.0 is significantly better at detecting phishing sites than Microsoft's newest, Internet Exploder 7.

Phishing sites tested against were provided by anti-phishing group PhishTank, which has a long list of possible scam sites, all user submitted. 820 of the 1,040 known phishing sites were blocked out by Firefox 2.0 with options set to default. Internet Exploder, says betanews, only blocked out 690 of the sites.

While this is good news for Mozilla's Foxy fanboys and girls, the blokes behind Internet Exploder replied by directing concerned web users to a similar study conducted by 3Sharp and, interestingly, funded by the Vole.

The 3Sharp test had IE7 catching 9 out of 10 phishing sites and scored 172 points on 3Sharp's scale, while Firefox recorded a score of 106 points.

Program manager for IE, Tony Chor reckons that 3Sharp's test shows that IE is king: "We think that the results reported by 3Sharp validate the unique approach we've taken of combining a service-backed block list with client-side heuristics," he warbled. µ

L'INQS
Phishtank
3Sharp