A Mozilla-commissioned study has given the antifraud features in the Firefox 2 browser high marks, finding they are much more effective than those in Internet Explorer 7.The study, commissioned by Firefox maker Mozilla and carried out by SmartWare, comes on the heels of a Microsoft-commissioned study that found just the opposite—concluding that IE 7 led the pack.The SmartWare study, released on Tuesday, used 1,040 phishing sites as verified by the PhishTank community-powered antiphishing service. It found that Firefox 2’s blacklist feature blocked about 79 percent of the sites, while IE 7’s whitelist-based Auto Check OFF blocked 16 of the sites, less than 2 percent.The study also compared Firefox 2’s Ask Google feature, which checks sites against a Google-provided list of phishing sites, with IE 7’s Auto Check ON, finding that the Firefox feature blocked 848 of the sites compared with 690 for IE 7. SmartWare noted that there were large gaps in which sites were blocked, with 243 cases where Firefox blocked a site but IE didn’t, and 117 cases where IE blocked a site that was given the all-clear by Firefox.The browsers were tested over a period of two weeks using a custom Web application tied into PhishTank’s XML feed of scam URLs. Last month’s Microsoft-funded study measured things quite differently, generating an “accuracy” score based on detection rates as well as other factors such as false positives and the effectiveness of the action taken when a site is flagged.In that study, IE 7 ended up with a score of 172, just slightly ahead Netcraft’s toolbar, which scored 168. Firefox was a distant third with 106, followed by eBay with 92, Earthlink ScamBlocker with 76, GeoTrust Trustwatch with 67, Netscape 8.1 with 56, and McAfee SiteAdvisor well behind in last place with a score of 3.-Matthew Broersma, Techworld.com (London)Related Links: Mozilla: We’ll Fix 2nd Minor Firefox 2.0 Bug Mozilla Firefox 2.0 Hits the Web Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Browser ReleasedCheck out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe