News Firefox, Opera popular with malware authors

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2009/08/24/firefox-opera-popular-with-malware-authors/1

Research has revealed the browser choices of drive-by malware download site creators - with Opera making a strong showing.

 

nope I havent but I check my system every now and then for such infection but at my work I would have to say that 92% of the people that come into our shop to have their computer cleaned of malware use IE, we havent had to many come in from people using FF but this makes sense for our town as its not really a tech focused area so the average user in our town uses whatever comes with their computer in this case IE. Still interesting read on the subject.

 

it doesn't surprise me that technically literate users would opt for a "better" browser than IE & imo that argument holds water for Opera as much as for FF (indeed probably more so as a lot of FF users probably aren't "geeks" but most Opera users quite possibly are).

Also, I think that there's always a bit of a question mark over Opera's real market share given that many people have it set to ID or mask as something else (usually IE). It's not going to be massive but it could well be higher than usually reported.

 

In other news, hackers prefer to use linux!

 

That's one of the reasons I still use Opera - not because I make malware, but because it's a much smaller target for it. That and I'm just too damned used to the thing. I know I could make Firefox like Opera with mouse gestures, but why try to make it like something it isn't - and spend all the time trolling through all the different plugins most of which I don't need or want?

 

With the right procautions and for IT enthusiasts, this shouldn't really worry us.

 

geek here (opera user) the problems with opera are far less then IE and FF, agane for the most part its User fault agane running an EXE when thay should not, saveing grace on vista or 7 with opera is that it does not support UAC admin upmode (sure it does not) so cant brake the browser it self at most you get an download box poping up and avg jo will click run and say hello furadware antivirus 2009

its the muti tab session remember support i use the opera for the most and single process (firefox and IE is more for crash recovery not for day to day session use as opera saves them for use next day)

 

Ever since version 8.5, the first one that was both free and ad-free, Opera identified as just Opera by default, and there was no spike in its stats, so likely usage counters could pick up that it was Opera (previously its user-agent string included Mozilla and IE and then Opera).

 

Wow! A rare win for Chrome here.

 

i use opera 10 beta 2 and think its the best browser around, cant beat the mouse gestures. though most of my love is purely my own opinion