The Most Vulnerable Browser Prize Goes to – Chrome!

Secunia has recently released its Vulnerability Review 2015 which reports that more vulnerabilities were discovered in Chrome during 2014 than any other piece of core internet software – almost double that of the next nearest contender Internet Explorer.

Actual results concluded by Secunia are:

  • Chrome – 504 reported vulnerabilities
  • Internet Explorer – 289 reported vulnerabilities
  • Firefox – 171 reported vulnerabilities
  • Total across all browsers (including Safari and Opera) – 1035 reported vulnerabilities

Secunia’s annual Vulnerability Report is collated from data harvested by the company’s Personal Software Inspector tool residing on “millions” of consumer machines, with an average of 76 installed applications across the board.

Of course, being an “industry-wide significant global player within the IT security ecosystem, in the niche of Software Vulnerability Management” (their words, not mine), it’s in Secunia’s interests to talk up these holes in popular applications. On the other side of the coin, Google would like users to know that counting vulnerabilities is inherently misleading, with the majority of reported bugs patched quickly or not even exploitable in the first place. <source>

The Secunia report goes on to reveal that overall vulnerabilities increased by 70%, from 728 during 2013 to 1035 during 2014, with un-patched zero day flaws rising from 14 to 25.

Of course, these types of reports, although interesting, often involve vested interests and should generally be taken with a grain of salt. In my humble opinion, the best possible browser security is a user’s own common sense and the most secure browser is always the one which lays in the hands of the most security conscious user.

 

9 thoughts on “The Most Vulnerable Browser Prize Goes to – Chrome!”

  1. Now matter how you look at those numbers, and how fast they are corrected, having the lowest number does mean something (that time and consideration is given before it is released), Mindblower!

  2. So, pray tell, why is FireFox losing ground to these other browsers? Have used FF for many years, love it, and can’t figure out why people are moving to Chrome. I sure hope FF sticks around for a long time.

  3. I have been using the Aviator browser for some time, and am very happy with it. It uses the Chrome browser engine with changes made to optimize security. Plugins from the Chrome Apps store work, and I have installed Disconnect, Chrome UA Spoffer, HTTPS Everywhere and Tab Activate. Aviator brings the pages up very fast as Disconnect eliminates the time it takes to load the ads. It keeps no cookies so you will have trouble with sites that depend on cookies to help identify you. I use FF for those sites.

  4. Wow, I am really surprised by those figures! I stopped using IE when there was a security scare and started using Chrome instead. But there is one thing that I particularly dislike about Chrome and that is that it doesn’t automatically sort Bookmarks by title. In fact, as far as I know, you have to click on each main folder to sort sub-folders into A-Z order and then you have to click on each sub-folder to sort those into A-Z order! So after reading this, I will either go back to IE or try Firefox again.

  5. “Of course, being an “industry-wide significant global player within the IT security ecosystem, in the niche of Software Vulnerability Management” (their words, not mine), it’s in Secunia’s interests to talk up these holes in popular applications.”

    I think that says it all!
    Not really even worth a mention except to stir.
    Come on…
    Is it still April the first?

  6. The perfect browser would be one that uses both a whitelist and a blacklist that contain every wesite in the world. The lists would have to be updated every minute and would slow down web browsing to a crawl. It would first check to see if the website was on the whitelist and safe to enter. It would then check the blacklist to see if it is a website that should be avoided completely. If the website is not on either list it would display a warning .

  7. I used to like Secunia but I (and some others at their forum) cannot get it to run (it displays a “loading” message on my Vista PC) and their support is of no help in correcting it.

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