Firefox 2.0 outshines IE7 in phish fight

According to a study commissioned by the Mozilla corporation, anti-phishing features in Firefox 2.0 perform better than equivalent security technologies in IE7, The Register reports.

The tests looked at how each browser responded to known phishing URLs as identified by community anti-phishing website Phishtank.

Firefox in its most secure configuration blocked 81.5 percent of the 1,040 phishing websites, whereas IE7 blocked only 66.4 percent. Even with the Ask Google feature turned off, Firefox 2.0 blocked 78.9 percent of the dodgy domains identified by Phishtank.

In 243 instances Firefox blocked fraudulent domains that IE allowed against 117 occasions when Firefox allowed visits to sites IE correctly identified as fraudulent. Both browsers failed to recognise 65 dodgy websites.