Millions of Windows users in Europe will shortly get the opportunity to install the browser of their choice after Microsoft lost a battle with the European Union over the monopoly of having Internet Explorer on its operating system. From March 1 Windows users will be offered the alternatives of Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera.
Testing the new “Here’s your choice of browser” message is currently being undertaken in the UK, Belgium and France.
While this is good news for both net users and the developers of rival browsers, I have been ruminating, cogitating and generally mulling over the potential downside. At the moment hackers generally exploit weaknesses in Internet Explorer; if this conduit for their malware etc is taken away will they start to examine ways of breaking into Firefox, Opera etc to hack into our PCs? In the past these browsers have had such a small slice of the market it wasn’t worth hacking them. That is likely to change.
For years those who have used Firefox and bragged about how safe they were from hackers may have the fact some unpleasant facts. Remember when Firefox first came out and being hack-free? Now think how many upgrades have been necessary to close security gaps!
Time to check your firewall and AV programs are bang up to date, methinks.
