My OperaSecunia
Thursday, July 12, 2007 10:22:33 PM
Note: This is a rant. I may regret saying this later, but it's something worth saying. I like Firefox. It's done a great thing for the web. But there's something severely different between Firefox and Opera.
I am very pleased that Opera won't let a single security hole exist in their browser. Many companies figure "it's very unlikely that someone will get that threat", or "if people make smart decisions, they will avoid becoming infected". But with literally millions of users, no company should be able to afford to allow their product to have security holes in it. Because in all likelihood, one out of those millions of users will get infected by a problem that could have been solved had the company viewed security holes as more important.
What I don't understand is how Firefox's big claim when 1.0 came out was that it was the unsinkable Titanic, built upon ultra-secure code, immune to attacks and security holes. But every piece of functional software has its holes, and it was a blind, ignorant, unexperienced, n00bish statement for Mozilla to make such a claim. And here they are with a product, having chosen to patch only 33% of their security holes, leaving a remaining 8 holes unfixed. Sometimes you have to slow down your development of the next release to ensure a little quality and security is put into your previous releases. Not everyone upgrades to the latest version the day it is released. I still know people who have Firefox 1.5 or 1.0. They're not about to upgrade.
As many of you are now aware, Secunia recently released a Highly Critical advisory for Firefox 2.x. It should be a matter of days before we see a patch released for that. Any later and I must seriously wonder how much Firefox, who originally claimed to bring concern to the world about security, is now falling into the same trap as Microsoft's IE team.
I am glad that Opera has never fallen into this hole. They've stuck to their word about security, and they're a company that can be trusted. No one questions how Opera views security. It's obviously the top of the list, even above gaining market share. That alone deserves a pat on the back. Thanks Opera Devs.
I am very pleased that Opera won't let a single security hole exist in their browser. Many companies figure "it's very unlikely that someone will get that threat", or "if people make smart decisions, they will avoid becoming infected". But with literally millions of users, no company should be able to afford to allow their product to have security holes in it. Because in all likelihood, one out of those millions of users will get infected by a problem that could have been solved had the company viewed security holes as more important.
What I don't understand is how Firefox's big claim when 1.0 came out was that it was the unsinkable Titanic, built upon ultra-secure code, immune to attacks and security holes. But every piece of functional software has its holes, and it was a blind, ignorant, unexperienced, n00bish statement for Mozilla to make such a claim. And here they are with a product, having chosen to patch only 33% of their security holes, leaving a remaining 8 holes unfixed. Sometimes you have to slow down your development of the next release to ensure a little quality and security is put into your previous releases. Not everyone upgrades to the latest version the day it is released. I still know people who have Firefox 1.5 or 1.0. They're not about to upgrade.
As many of you are now aware, Secunia recently released a Highly Critical advisory for Firefox 2.x. It should be a matter of days before we see a patch released for that. Any later and I must seriously wonder how much Firefox, who originally claimed to bring concern to the world about security, is now falling into the same trap as Microsoft's IE team.
I am glad that Opera has never fallen into this hole. They've stuck to their word about security, and they're a company that can be trusted. No one questions how Opera views security. It's obviously the top of the list, even above gaining market share. That alone deserves a pat on the back. Thanks Opera Devs.
Robert Hurleyrfhurley # Friday, July 13, 2007 12:23:47 AM