Browser phishing filters battle for supremacy.
Mozilla
has released results of an independently run test of phishing filters, in which its latest product,
Firefox 2.0
, is compared with
Microsoft
‘s new offering,
Internet Explorer 7
. The test results show new technology in
Firefox
outperforming that in the rival browser.
Researchers at a third-party testing company visited over 1,000 websites listed as confirmed phishing sites by the
PhishTank
community project, with each browser in various configurations.
IE7
scored 66% when in its default mode, which requires each site to be checked against a remote list at
Microsoft
headquarters, and a lowly 1.5% when cut off from the master list.
Firefox
, meanwhile, scored over 78% in its default local mode, and 81% when allowed to check with the latest blacklists provided by
Google
. As well as low detection rates,
IE
was criticised for the privacy risk and browsing slowdown caused by the use of remote data sources.
The tests have clashed with results of an earlier study, carried out for
Microsoft
by another third-party tester, which included several other phishing filters including an earlier version of the
Firefox
/
Google
collaboration. This test put the
Microsoft
product ahead of the field with a ‘nine out of ten’ detection rate (according a a
Microsoft
blogger) and zero false positives. The
Mozilla
-funded study has been criticised for poor methodology, including omitting false positive testing and not testing a wider range of products.
An overview of the new study can be found on
Mozilla
‘s site,
here
, while the earlier test was carried out by
3 Sharp
, whose results are
here
. More info on the earlier test is on the
Internet Explorer
team blog,
here
, and a response to the new results from a
3 Sharp
representative is
here
.
Posted on 16 November 2006 by
Virus Bulletin
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