Or so say some.... Wired News: Cool Ways to Give IE the Boot
Now according to this article there are some alternatives to IE beyond FireFox and considers 2: IRider and Deepnet Explorer. About IRider it says:
... IRider appears not to be vulnerable to most of the security exploits that plague Internet Explorer, especially if you follow the company's advice on how to configure the browser ...
and about Deepnet Explorer we have:
As far as security is concerned, Deepnet spokeswoman Anneli Ritari noted that "Deepnet Explorer does not support any third-party plug-ins. We prefer to develop and build in the features instead of enabling plug-ins, including the so-called Browser Helper Objects, so it could be argued that Deepnet is more secure than Internet Explorer or Mozilla."
Deepnet Explorer doesn't support third party plug-ins? I don't think so, it runs ActiveX objects such as ScriptX (which is perfectly safe, just using that as an example).
Both of these applications host the Microsoft Web Browser Control - this is the control that wraps MSHTML.DLL that Internet Explorer uses. You can host mshtml directly, but its more difficult than hosting the control so most go for the control. The point is, all the scripting etc etc vulnerabilities there are in "Internet Explorer" are in IRider and Deepnet as well because they are using the same underlying technology. Get one of these and think you are safe and can ignore advisories and updates and you are seriously fooling yourself.
The only thing that I can see that is true is that neither loads BHOs, which are often the route of choice for spyware, but that is all.
The article doesn't mention the Zeepe Zowser, and nor should it really, its just a sample. But, if you fancy an easy way of writing your own tabbed browser, its a good starting point. Just don't think you will be any more secure than IE -you won't and to re-iterate, you won't be anymore secure with IRider or Deepnet either.
[Update. Just seen the article go by again my news reader:
Cool Ways to Give IE the Boot. If you're looking for an alternative to Internet Explorer, there's more out there than just Mozilla. Here's a rundown of some popular Web browsers not written by Microsoft. By Michelle Delio.
My argument is that IRider and Deepnet Explorer are, at their heart, written by Microsoft. Nothing wrong with them, just be aware that all is not, IMHO, as implied by Michelle.
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If someone can show me where the above is wrong and web browser control hosts are much safer than IE in the cases other than BHOs then I will be most grateful since it would apply to Zeepe as well.