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Apparently Internet Explorer 8 is exceptional at blocking malware sites. Out of 492 malware sites IE8 blocked 69% of them. You might be thinking that they still missed 40% of them but the next closest rival (Firefox) only blocked 30% of the sites.

The findings were released by NSS Labs an independent security company, but Microsoft sponsored the tests. IE8 RC1, Firefox 3.0.7, Safari 3, Chrome 1.0.154, Opera 9.64 and IE7 were all tested against the same 492 websites with IE8 coming out on top. The interesting thing to note is that they were still using a pre-release version of IE8 for their testing and the results could be better or worse depending on final changes made to the application.

This is good news for Microsoft and Internet Explorer but better security only works if you can actually convince people to use the browser. Since IE8′s release their market share has not exactly been what Microsoft had hoped for. After the initial release it has only grown to 2.64% (at it’s highest) usage including the beta install that is unable to be upgraded in the Windows 7 beta (about 1.3%).

It is hard to trust the results because it was sponsored by Microsoft but 39% better than the competition is hard to fake. Do you put faith in the results when it is paid for by the winner of the tests?

Check It Out> Computer World via ThreatPost