TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

For quite sometime during the XP pre-SP2 days, using Internet Explorer 6 as your default browser only translated into unbelievable trouble that could easily have you losing control over your computer experience, if not totally compromising your system. At the other side of the fence sat Opera and Firefox and a bit later Safari. While still ironing bugs and fighting for widespread adoption, the browsers were built with security in mind (at least for the time) and quickly gained momentum as the alternative to the very insecure IE experience.

Eventually MS caught up with IE7, but because the browser remained as the most widely used worldwide, it was also the biggest target for hackers and malicious exploits, still giving the edge to the rest of the pack.

But no more, it seems. PC World reports that during the last few months, both Firefox and Safari have seen version updates on face of newly discovered security vulnerabilities, while IE in the other hand, has seen none. Without a doubt, with growing popularity comes further exposure to this kind of attacks, but is nonetheless good news for IE users who are getting much improved security than years before, and good news for Firefox and Safari users who are getting up-to-the-minute updates which reduces the window for an actual exploit.