Microsoft's Browser Best at Beating Malware

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) again trounced rival browsers in a test of their malware-blocking abilities, catching 81% of attack code-infected sites, according to a testing company.
IE8's improvement, and its dominance over competitors, could make some users reconsider their decision to abandon Microsoft's browser for one of its challengers. "Should people rethink that decision?" Moy asked. "By [this] data, absolutely."
While IE8 blocked eight of 10 of the malware-distributing sites that NSS included in its 12-day test, the nearest competitor, Mozilla's Firefox 3.0, caught just 27% of the same sites. Apple's Safari 4.0 and Google's Chrome 2.0, meanwhile, blocked only 21% and 7% of the sites, respectively. Opera Software's browser properly identified only 1%.
The tests did not include sites that launch "drive-by" attacks that don't require user interaction, an increasingly common tactic by hackers who often infect legitimate sites with kits that try a number of different exploits in the hope of compromising an unpatched browser or PC.
To defend against the kind of sites that NSS tested, browser makers have added anti-malware features to their software. Microsoft, for instance, has aggressively touted its SmartScreen Filter, a new malware-detection feature in IE8.
Soruce: http://www.pcworld.com/article/170260/microsofts_browser_best_at_beating_malware.html