Secunia report shows that Internet Explorer is no longer the most vulnerable app in the world these days

Mar 29, 2015 04:11 GMT  ·  By

One of the factors that convinced Microsoft to kill Internet Explorer in Windows 10 and replace it with a new browser was the negative perception of the app, as many people believed that it was among the most insecure and unstable browsers on the market.

A report published by security company Secunia for 2014 shows that Microsoft was right when it said that Internet Explorer was actually a much more secure program than its rivals, as Redmond's in-house browser actually had less vulnerabilities last year than Google Chrome.

The 2014 report puts Google Chrome, Oracle Solaris, and Gentoo Linux at the top of the charts with 504, 483, and 350 security flaws, respectively, while Internet Explorer is fourth in the rankings with 289 such vulnerabilities. Mozilla Firefox is also among the most vulnerable apps in 2014 with a total number of 171 confirmed security glitches.

Microsoft has no reason to be happy

While the fact that Internet Explorer had fewer vulnerabilities than Google Chrome could actually be good news for Microsoft, the software giant has no reason to be happy.

Fewer bugs doesn't necessarily mean that Internet Explorer was less prone to hacks and it's a well-known fact that Microsoft sometimes needed several weeks to fix critical security flaws in its browser.

At the same time, Microsoft is one of the companies that have several apps in the top 20 vulnerable products chart put together by Secunia.

In addition to Internet Explorer, Windows 8 also made the list with 105 vulnerabilities, which proves that, despite the security improvements that Microsoft made to its modern operating system, flaws still exist, so it all comes down to how fast it actually manages to patch them.

In the meantime, keep in mind that Internet Explorer will soon go dark because of the arrival of a new browser, so these statistics might not mean anything for those who plan to upgrade to Windows 10. The new OS is set to arrive with Spartan browser in the second half of 2015.