If you think you can rely on the anti-phishing features of Firefox 2 or Internet Explorer 7, a new report shows you just how unreliable both browsers are. But there is a software solution we’ve discovered which works to protect you from phishing attacks, and its free!

A report in the Washington Post�goes into great detail in a new report from SmartWare showing that in their tests, quote: Firefox blocked 243 phishing sites that IE7 overlooked, while IE7 blocked 117 sites that Firefox did not.

If you read the original article, there are plenty of other stats, there’s information on default settings for the browsers and plenty more.

But let�s face facts: these results are terrible. They’re shocking and appalling. How is the average user supposed to have any idea how to configure their browser? Can they really trust that a site their browser says is safe, is actually safe?

What about the reverse? How many legitimate sites will be branded as untrustworthy by this anti-phishing feature which is clearly still stuck within the depths of buggy beta hell?

And in what may come as a shock to Internet users wanting the very fastest performance from their browsers, turning on the anti-phishing feature of IE7 actually slows things down quite a bit.

Turn the feature off, and your browser speeds back to life. You�d think this wouldn�t be a problem in the age of broadband, dual and quad core processors and gigabytes of RAM. But guess what, it still is.

There’s no question that an anti-phishing service is desperately needed on all modern computers. The thing is, it needs to be simple, safe and reliable. If it can be free to the end user, even better. If there’s a way for legitimate companies to validate themselves against this service, then bonus brownie points on top can be issued as well.

Of course the development work on anti-phishing technologies in browsers will continue, and one day, they’ll get it right.

Until then, my recommendation is to have a very good look at TrustDefender. Available from www.trustdefender.com, this software is free to download, free to use, has been through extensive beta testing and is available as an actual released product that has already gone through revisions and updates.

And it doesn’t rely upon working within a particular brand of browser, nor can it be easily hacked as browser based solutions can.

Don’t take my word for it. Check it out for yourself.

A free software solution exists to tackle the problem today. Why rely on buggy beta-level features in the latest browsers that are plainly half-baked, as so ably demonstrated in the reports and links above?

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 at 2:29 am under Security.

Read more entries by Alex Zaharov-Reutt.
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