The blogosphere was abuzz with news of this move. Todd Bishop’s write-up was as good as analysis as anyone’s as to how such competition will play out between vendors.
“Microsoft, meanwhile, finds itself in an interesting spot here. On the one hand, Apple is acknowledging the significance of Windows by announcing -- at its own developer conference -- that it plans to make its browser available on the Microsoft operating system. On the other hand, this creates a new competitor for Internet Explorer.”
More important to enterprise executives is that Explorer and Firefox are both targets of malware -- bots can load on a PC just because a vulnerable browser visits an infected site (no clicking or other interaction is required from the user). Browsers such as Opera and and Safari are less targeted for malicious javascript, simply because they aren’t used by the masses. So Safari on Windows could give enterprise execs the best of all worlds -- a browser that is safer and supported by a major IT vendor.
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Researcher breaks Safari on the first day
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Well, maybe this won't be such good news for security after all. Turns out that the Safari port to Windows has as many bugs as a Florida swamp. Researcher Thor Larholm compromised it in a matter of hours. http://larholm.com/2007/06/12/safari-for-windows-0day-exploit-in-2-hours/
Apple Safari browser on Windows?
The article ends with the comment that Safari would give enterprise execs a secure browser option because it is not used by the masses and hence not targeted by the hackers. How long after release to the Windows platform and (if) it gets significant market share will it take the hackers to change that?
Seems to me to be a really bogus argument.
Big IF
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Yeah, if it gets significant market share -- particularly by home users -- it would be a major target. Then it would become the battle of the vendors' security folks. Could Apple do a better job than Microsoft? Than Mozilla and the open source world?
But honestly, that's a down-the-road concern. The bothearders are running wild right now. From March through May, active drones grew from about a half million to over 3 million, Shadowserver.org observed. Millions of URLs are successfully downloading malware -- to IE and Firefox users. Botfighters recommend using less popular browsers. If a browser becomes popular, maybe switching again would be better than being open to infection.