Did Google pull a fast one on Firefox and Safari users?
February 6, 2012
Over the past several years, NSS Labs has conducted ongoing research into the protection capabilities of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. The latest round of testing occurred from November 21, 2011 – January 5, 2011, during which we observed what appears to be a significant change when compared with historical results. Chrome's protection rate steadily climbed to just over 50% before suddenly falling back to 20%. Over the same time period (Nov 21,2011 – December 21, 2011), Firefox and Safari's block rate remained stuck at 2%, and then inexplicably jumped to 7% on the same day Chrome's protection precipitously dropped (December 22nd).
Chrome, Firefox and Safari all use Google's Safe Browsing API, and Google has publicly stated that it has not withheld data from their Safe Browsing feed. So what should end users make of the results? At the request of several enterprise clients, NSS Labs has performed an in-depth examination of Safe Browsing and how it isimplemented in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
