Mozilla (Sea Monkey)
Mozilla is part of the Mozilla application suite, designed while keeping an eye on safety. There's even a bug bounty program. Due to the above reasons, only 3 unsolved security holes, IE has 20, were present in June 2005 and no exploits were found since the launch. The latest version is 1.7.12, this will probably be the last offical release, since the Mozilla Foundation wants to focus on the development of Firefox. Y ou can download the Mozilla Suite here (keep in mind support will be discontinued)
The browser is very safe since it lacks ActiveX support, though a plugin can be downloaded, automatically blocks most popups and is highly customizable. Besides, since it's not as popular as internet explorer people don't focus on developping exploits since the target audience is limited. To top it off, plugins adding even more security are available on the web. All this sounds very good but there are some downsides to Mozilla, though they are not security related:
- Mozilla uses a lot of memory compared to, for example, IE
- ActiveX is not supported (positive, but also negative for sites which use activex to function properly)
- Some pages don't render the way they should or don't render at all. This is not caused by Mozilla, but by the people who built the site. A lot of coders don't comply with international standards and build sites targeting IE only, thus eliminating Mozilla users from their sites
- The software code is visible to anyone, thus Mozilla targeted malicious code can be made
Pro's
- Quite safe
- Available in lot's of languages
- Highly customizable
Con's
- Uses the netscape engine, so you cannot use Netscape and Mozilla at the same time
- The netscape engine is getting quite outdated
Modify your safety settings and a few basic rules to keep in mind while surfing the web.