is it true that firefox is less susceptible to viruses than ie and if so why?

Answer 1

Yes it's true- because while Firefox has its own bugs, it has far fewer security holes to exploit.

Microsoft's implementation of ActiveX under IE makes life downright easy for writers of viruses and malware.

And because the programmers aren't all swamped with fixing higher-priority operating system bugs with XP, Vista, Windows server, SQL, Office etc - Firefox problems get fixed more quickly.

True, IE is the most widely-used broweser and therefore is targeted by more virus writers. But even if Firefox and IE were equally popular and there were equal numbers of hackers working on breaching both systems, IE would still be less secure because Microsoft's awful design decisions (with the internals, not the interface) made it so. We're not looking at two targets that are roughly equivalent in terms of difficulty- one is much easier to hit.

Answer 2

Right off Mozilla's FAQ:

"Yes, Firefox and all other Mozilla-based products are more secure. Why? Here is a list of the most important reasons:

* It is not integrated with Windows, which helps prevent viruses and hackers from causing damage if they somehow manage to compromise Firefox.
* There is no support for VBScript and ActiveX, two technologies which are the reasons for many IE security holes.
* No spyware/adware software can automatically install in Firefox just by visiting a web site.
* Firefox doesn't use Microsoft's Java VM, which has a history of more flaws than other Java VMs.
* You have complete control over cookies."

To that I wish to add that firefox responds far more quickly with patches and fixes then IE does and since FF is open source you have a lot more people working on the code so bugs are more easily found and rooted out.

Answer 3

Yes Firefox is less susceptible to viruses than IE not only because of the Active X issues, but also because it is less popular then IE. As Firefox and Opera approach IE in market share, there are increasing numbers of people working to find exploitable security holes.
Same thing in the Mac vs PC security issue.