IE 8 Leads in Malware Protection

According to a recent report by NSS Labs Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 outperformed four other Web browsers in protecting against malware spread by social engineering techniques.

The main reason why IE 8 beat out the competition -- which included Apple Safari 4, Google Chrome 4, Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and Opera 10 -- appears to be Microsoft's use of its "SmartScreen Filter" technology.

SmartScreen is a reputation-based URL comparison service that warns users of known threats, such as a Web page that attempts to get users to download malicious programs.

According to the report, IE 8 caught 85 percent of live threats. Other browser fell way behind in protection against socially engineered malware. Safari caught 29 percent of live threats, tying with Firefox. Chrome caught 17 percent, while Opera caught less than 1 percent.

Check-out this blog post for additional information on the study.

Does your browser protect you against malware?

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