Chapter Twenty Eight. Firefox and the Worry-Free Web

Blake Ross

AS THE PRIMARY BARRIER BETWEEN MILLIONS OF UNSUSPECTING WEB USERS AND THE CON ARTISTS who want their credit card numbers, Firefox developers are acutely aware of the challenges in securing the Web. And so, it seems, are our users. More than 15 million people downloaded Firefox 1.0 in its first two monthsa gold rush driven by Firefox's speed and reliability, no doubt, but also driven by the barrage of media warnings against online identity theft, data loss, and continuing security problems with Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE).