In a report from NSS Labs, the research company found that Microsoft Edge, the latest browser from the Redmond company, is more secure against phishing and malware than both Google Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox. The set of reports, which can be downloaded here, tested three current versions of each browser over the months of September and October to get the results which will likely come as a surprise to some. The versions tested for the reports were:
- Google Chrome 53.0.2785
- Mozilla Firefox 48.0.2
- Microsoft Edge 38.14393.0.0
The first report focused on phishing where Edge achieved a 91.4% over the course of 12 days of testing at the NSS Labs in Austin, Texas in recognizing phishing URLs presented to it. Chrome was at 82.4% while Firefox came in at 81.4%. This is an important consideration in choosing a browser given the social engineering nature of phishing attacks which can lead to compromised accounts for users.
The second report focused on malware penetration of the browsers and the testing methodology was quite thorough.
Google Chrome for Windows
During testing, all browsers were subjected to the same set of social malware. This test comprised 220,918 test cases that included 5,224 unique suspicious samples. Ultimately, 304 samples met NSS validation criteria and were included as part of the test. This test was conducted free of charge, and NSS did not receive any compensation in return for vendor participation.
The results indicate that Microsoft Edge was able to identify 99% of the suspicious samples while Chrome got them 85.3% of the time. Firefox was only able to identify 78.3%.
For both studies, a Windows 10 PC running version 1607 of the OS was used.
The results are certainly interesting and points to the continual challenges that Microsoft, Google and Mozilla face when protecting users against phishing and malware. It is a constantly moving target but it is clear based on this and other reports that Microsoft is taking the security as well as the performance of Edge seriously. While I no longer use a Windows PC (I moved back to MacOS), my testing of Edge found it to be a solid performing browser for PCs and this report adds credence to it being safe and secure. Of course, as you all know, Google and Mozilla have both issued further updates to their Windows browsers since this report so it is possible that things have improved for both of them since the report.
Give them a read and see what you think. If you are a Windows users, do you use Edge or will you consider it now more than before reading this report? Leave a comment and let me know.
