This is my "I Told You So" to my linux/firefox friends, you know who you are.
On September 19, 2005 Symantec ventured a bold claim: Mozilla Browsers more vulnerable than IE.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5873273.html?tag=nl
I love the unwinnable battles. Recently, talking to a friend, I mentioned I got the personalized tag "D0T N3T' to go on my new sports car. The friend, a avid Microsoft-naysayer harrassed me for hours and is genuinely irritated by my adoption and persistent use of MS technologies to provide solid business solutions, advance my career and improve my station in life. He's a linux-phite, dedicated to hating all things Microsoft & loving all things not endorsed by Bill G. - and I constantly hear about his insistance on the greatness of Firefox.
Six months ago it seemed that Firefox had set IE squarely in its sights with claims of greater stability, security, better functionality and stricter interpretation of w3c standards. All I ever heard was how Firefox, through community support would dethrone IE and yadayadayada and that all of the cool DHTML, IE-Only tricks on the intranet app I was writing would soon be rendered obsolete by the far, superior and more stable Firefox.
Indeed, our Sysadmin spent hours on the phone with customers promoting FireFox this - Redhat - that. New machines began to rollout - Firefox as the default browser.
Sure, Microsoft is easy to hate. They have more money than the Southern Baptist Association and a willingness to dominate every market they enter. Who wouldn't want to be in that situation?
Sure... Firefox is supported by the community. But, as I said - Microsoft can always throw a $billion in the direction of IE and they are back on top- and they did and they have stayed on top.
Security. I love to hear that "Windows is insecure, IE is insecure, firefox, linux & MySQL are inpenetrable."
I learned this lesson from someone much wiser than myself.
The uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics roughly states that while the more accurately you record a particles position, the less accurate you will be able to determine it's velocity and visa-versa.
I think the same can be applied to computer security. The more exposure an application has to the general population, the less secure it is. Why? Bigger Target and Ooooohhhh so many points of entry.
Firefox, inevitably - much like a particle approaching the speed of light - will encounter more resistance the faster it deploys to the world. If firefox was installed on every desktop in the world it would become a huge target for security flaws as a point of entry to those desktops.
(Not bad for a r'dale/faulkner guy, right?)
At some point, having a multi-billion dollar software giant behind your software helps to negate the pressure applied by security exposure brought on by mass exceptance.
No software, Firefox or IE - will ever be flawless so long as people are endeavoring to discover or introduce flaws for personal gain, recognition or political motive.
clink, clink.. Just my two cents.