Statistics have shown that a large number of corporations continue to cling to Internet Explorer 6, despite its woefully outdated design and serious security flaws. If you're part of one such corporation, here's some added incentive to cut the 6-strings: A new study revealed that Internet Explorer 8 is the top browser at blocking malware sites.

The tests, conducted by NSS Labs, compared IE8 with four competing browsers. The results were decidedly eye-opening:

While IE8 blocked eight of 10 of the malware-distributing sites that NSS included in its 12-day test, the nearest competitor, Mozilla's Firefox 3.0, caught just 27% of the same sites. Apple's Safari 4.0 and Google's Chrome 2.0, meanwhile, blocked only 21% and 7% of the sites, respectively. Opera Software's browser properly identified only 1%.

Granted, the testing didn't include older versions of Internet Explorer, but it goes without saying that IE8 would have trounced them. The browser sports such security-minded new features as SmartScreen Filter, which adds malware blocking to the anti-phishing features built into IE7.

So how about it, IE6 die-hards? Why haven't you migrated to a browser that's faster, infinitely more secure, and free? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

In the meantime, check out some of our previous posts about Internet Explorer 8:

• How to Deploy and Manage Internet Explorer 8
• How Internet Explorer 8 Accelerators Help Users Browser Faster
• Why Are Enterprises Still Clinging to IE6?

[via Computerworld]

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