The primary problem with that test methodology is the dataset itself. You source the dataset from any list or combination of lists. The browser developers basically do the same thing to feed their malware or malicious site detecting algorithm, which is possibly just as simple as "compare the checksums or URLs". So as long as they have a superset of these lists, they are guaranteed to perform well. More interesting is e.g. what happens if you create slightly altered, functionally equivalent mutations of existing malware (e.g. by replacing xor %eax, %eax with mov %eax, 0 for example) or to download these files from benign looking URLs.
Or "sub %eax,%eax", which is the same length and very similar in its bit pattern. Anyways, testing independent browsers like Brave and Palemoon is important for any comparison to be fair.
certainly one wouldnt want to just use this method to test whether a browser is secure or not but as a proof of concept python script i think its ONE way to test your browsers security features which can spoke interest, discussion or inspiration like with what you mention, and that's the real value of this video, in my opinion.
I would go even further and say that the test itself is pretty pointless: It's not testing how secure the browser is, but how good the blacklists are. Scanning for malicious files or sites is merely a bonus to assist the low brow users from _downloading_ malware from suspicious sites. Doesn't help if the browser is susceptible to HTML-based or Javascript attacks (i.e. malformed images or javascript exploits causing buffer overflows etc), and you can't test these with some file downloads, even if you try it with a million files.
Lol I had 400 open just a month or two ago. I've whittled it down to just over 100 now though. I only have 32gb of ram and only at most used up slightly more than half of it with 400 tabs open.
@@anotherone3284 ^ This I also use a tab suspender kind of thing when a tab is inactive for more than like 10 minutes or something so I don't eat up all my resources as I regularly have a crap load of tabs open 😂.
That is pretty cool. I'm still going to use Firefox though (although boosted with various add-ons). I know this was just a simple test but it's not so much browser security as browser security for downloading specific malware. That's not the only possible sort of attack and just because it's good at protecting against bad downloads, doesn't mean it protects against other vulnerabilities. It's also important to know how many safe downloads are incorrectly blocked. A browser which by default blocks all downloads would score 100% on this test but it would be a terrible browser.
@@NicolastheThird-h6m Yeah, Firefox must have the most extensions out of all the browsers, thanks for reminding me, I thought there might be a DuckDuckGo browser for Windows but nope, I would be installing it right now since I just I searched for it... =8^/
You mentioned that Chrome/Edge had the notice of "not commonly downloaded" insinuating it was specific to them, but Firefox displayed virtually the exact same warning on many of the files. Arguably Firefox had an even better rate because its blocked % was 93% not counting any warnings (which were counted on the other two browsers).
@@artbell259 That... doesn't make sense. "The most used browser will be targeted the most, therefore the second-most used browser will be the best, i.e. not targeted at all". Following your logic, it should be a completely unknown browser. As for whether completely unknown browsers actually are safe, not really? Unless you have already patched every single bug in that browser, which is practically impossible to do, all you are relying on is security through obscurity, and if there's a cross-browser exploit, who will care to patch the unknown browser?
Firefox lacks a robust smart screen. But using norton safeweb addon for firefox has changed changed the game literally. It even filters out most phishing links, which is impressive.
@@doge7831 I've been using firefox for more than a decade and have recently tested it against a good number of malicious links. Then I went testing almost all security addons, including BD Traffic light, mwb, wot, safeweb, avast/avg, emsisoft, avira etc. Safeweb was the only one that performed on par with edge. The other addons failed miserably, even with ublock origin and https mode enabled.
Good test, but I think a better one would be with just websites and no downloads. Might be a bit more difficult to do. Maybe open a page, and check if most of the page is red, and then close it again. This I think would be better because most browsers won't download exe-files that are uncommon. Also would be great if used with a list of very fresh links.
Edge doesn't deserve the amount of hate it gets. I have been a chrome user for the last 5 years or so but have started trying edge because of instability issues in chrome. From what i have seen, Egde is superior to chrome in almost every aspect. It is a lot more stable, consumes same or less resources than chrome, and has decent ui.
@@eeka_droid firefox uses more resources in video decoding. About twice as much on my laptop. Which decreases my laptop's battery life a lot. That was my main reason for leaving firefox.
Try CCleaner Browser and Adguard security extension (with security filters enabled). After using them together, you won't go back to Chrome, Edge or Firefox.
My beef with edge is how strongly Microsoft tries to force it on you. Even just "updating" settings to trick you back to edge. I used edge for a while on a windows s machine and it works but I don't think it's better or worse than chrome. (Other than Microsofts attempts making me hate it)
I am surprised by these results, as a lifelong Firefox user i am happy to see that it holds up and also surprised how strong Edge is. Great video and a note i will stick to Firefox.
@@ad1340yt Not OP but but thanks. It’s based on Blink and I don’t want Blink and WebKit to be the only rendering engines in town. The dominance of Blink is bad enough as it is. I’ll use Firefox and support them as much as I can because I don’t want one company to completely dominate the Internet as Microsoft did with IE. Companies have a terrible history of abusing that level of power.
There are rumors that Google will stop funding Mozilla in 2023, so I'm curious if Firefox can survive with a $450 million hole in its financial budget.
Enthusiast Edge user here, I know, we're rare.. When I get the prompt for an unpopular file, I usually double check to see if it's not some sketchy file, unless it's from a trusted website, then I just keep it.
Exactly. Whenever I get this warning I just copy the download link and paste in online virus scan to check manually. My ratio for these files is 50-50. 50% of the time it does help me avoid downloading something I don't trust already.
Great video, thanks. I would still stick to Firefox Nightly with Edge as a backup, and Chrome not being installed at all on the machines, but it is good to know the spyware browser is good against malware (yes, I know the irony of TH-cam and Chrome coming from the same company)
Don't know how he would do tor browser. I think the urls are just a lot of random characters like letters and numbers, and I don't know if there is a repository of tor browser malware installation links. Plus I don't think there are any safety measures to prevent malware on tor.
@@glowgold868 Tor is also widely used for "normal sites" and is also the browser with the most safety measures against malware and hardening out of ALL common browsers, because that is the point of using it in the first place.
@@zun1777 I see. But I think the results of testing the tor browser would be a waste of time if you could estimate the results. If its hardening of all common browsers, I think it would miss at max 10.
I've just one question... Why did you not include the obvious winner, Opera? Perhaps it was for better entertainment or it would've been a no contest and winner by default if Opera was in the mix too!
Been binging all of your videos since I found your channel Late yesterday. Now it's 4AM soon to be 5 and I'm still watching. Thx for testing, showing and teaching us the ways to stay safe on the web and keeping our own information private and secure.
Agree with some previous posts. It would be interesting to see some tests on how these browsers perform with Malwarebytes browser guard and Unlock Origin plugins... then also a separate test if you change your dns to maybe Cloudflare's protected DNS servers or OpenDNS malware/adult protection dns servers.
@@himankan Please stop trying to shove your norton addon down people's throats. You spammed every comment with your addon. We get it, you either work at Norton or you know someone who does. But that does not mean you can harass for your own personal gain. Malwarebytes is all we need, thanks.
@@angrysocialjusticewarrior I, or anyone I know have no remote relation with that company. Secondly now you're promoting another av addon. The reason why I'm saying what I've been saying is because people hate norton and rightly so. I have hated them for their recent practices too. But the performance of that addon surprised me when tested against real world malicious links. Now when I say this, it's not to promote but hopefully somebody will give it a thought to test it for themselves.
I agree it would be interesting, but it wouldn't be representative of anything that is useful to derive information from for standard users. Standard users are only in the past several years even deciding to download different browsers aside from the default, much less changing DNS. And most users familiar with such things aren't particularly in danger of these malicious links in the first place.
Thanks Asux - I get that. Brave focuses mainly on privacy and blocks cross-site trackers, third-party cookies, fingerprinting, bounce tracking, and malware/phishing attempts, but I don't know about download security. It's not that easy to test this yourself, so I think it would be an interesting topic.
Can you also check “default host application”? Kidding. My main request is actually false positives since I get those a lot when I use windows (I usually use macOS)
Same. I don't think it's "false positives", I think there's some quirk about how this is being measured where it measures edge as having a 100% detection rate when it actually doesn't, and I think if we used legitimate addresses it would "protect" against all those too (even though in reality it's not protecting against nearly as much).
I've seen lots of tests like these, but none of them address the question I would like to see answered. They generally test how secure/performant/etc. an application is out of the box with default settings, when I want to know how well an application can be made to work through configuration adjustments. I want the app with the best potential, because that's what I'm going to tweak it to and home in on before settling in for the long term. It's a more difficult thing to test, I know, but it would be interesting to test an app with its default settings vs with settings adjusted by an expert user (or more than one).
I've always found the security of most browsers to be comparable. My decision usually comes down to privacy. In that regard, I use FireFox because of it's many debloated forks in tandem with the ability to manually disable settings that I believe are an invasion of my online privacy. Sure, with Chrome you can do this too. And chromium forks like Brave exist. But trying to debloat Chrome is a major pain in the a$$ when compared to Firefox. With Firefox the devs have put thought into the fact that some people will want to disable certain settings for privacy reasons, and they made that option available. With Chrome, it's quite clear the devs didn't want people to disable certain tracking elements and have gone out of their way to hide certain variables and functions from the user. I realize that I didn't mention edge, so I'll mention it now. Edge exists. That's all, moving on.
Great Video but why did you leave out important topic? Some sites that are bad can now hijack browsers by simply going to a webpage/website. So during your test where any of the broswers hijacked?
I'm impressed with your objectivity. I've seen internet jokes about one-and-done Edge, only used to download Chrome. I get the impression that Chrome and Firefox have much better brands in general. Still, for your experiment found that Edge was the best and you presented that result. Thank you for not just telling me what I want to hear. Thank you for not placating the expectations of the biggest audience for clicks.
He wasn't objective. At all. He called Chrome and Edge "this file is unknown and weird" warnings "detections", which is stupid and blatantly shows you the biggest difference between these three browsers: that two of the three of them are openly spying on their users and sending data back to Google and Microsoft on downloaded files and god knows what else. Even without having to spy on its users, Firefox still detected on 93%. And I mean actually detected, not "hurr durr this file is weird none of my spyware data has noticed it".
I'm actually surprised Edge was better. I've been using Edge for a while. Despite Microsoft's shittyness sometimes, they do have a good browser here. Been using it for one year now, it's really easy to use, much better than Chrome (which I used for over 10 years)
they're on point for the technologies they bother to develop, it's just the problem is that they drop a lot of their own tech seemingly out of nowhere sometimes. off the top of my head, Silverlight and XNA as examples
It can't really be "much" better than Chrome because Microsoft switched to Chromium relatively recently, Chrome's open-source engine. Before the switch the old Edge could not really keep up competitively, now they run about the same speed wise.
@@freecomkcf Windows Defender SmartScreen has been around for a while now, and Windows Defender even longer. Originally Windows Defender was an embarrassing anti-virus but now it's really good and probably has a massive database of signatures. As far as Edge goes itself, it's literally just modified Chromium, so they probably only touched 1% to make it work, and added 10% more to make it Microsoft.
For me, a Firefox user, the main reason I refuse Edge is purely because MS tries to shove it down my throat every oportunity they get, perhaps if they stopped doing such things I'd actually try it out and make an objective desicion about it.
@@Felipe_9999 Even MS Office will archive user data until an internet connection is established then send it to Microsoft. That means Microsoft is logging what you do even when offline. Get outta the rat trap that is Microsoft Windows. I'd love to say switch to Linux, but most people don't take too kindly to that nowadays, even though it's way better.
I've personally noticed that Chrome Enhanced mode does make a difference with a decent amount of malicious sites especially ones that don't necessarily contain malware but instead are spam/scam sites that pop up with warnings that "Microsoft/McAfee/etc. has detected that your computer is compromised/infected/etc"
You could've added some delay in opening the tabs, and fix the number of opened tabs, say at 20. When a site fully loads/downloads the exe, you can close it afterwards. I think it is possible to do with selenium, that way a lot more sites could've been added. Although it might take a bit longer than opening all the sites at once. Also, it would be interesting to run the test on the same browser multiple times and see if the detection ratio is same. I think opening all the tabs at once may overload the requests and some of the sites may not load correctly.
Did you do a manual count of the entries, where you could hit the 'keep' button? In my company, i see that messagt for almost every file, even for our own sharepoint site.
Nice video, but my antivirus will already block them all. Secondly I would prefer Firefox for privacy. True edge and chrome do better in this test when we look at blocking malware etc but I am curious to know what choice you would make when privacy is very important as well.
If privacy is your concern then you have to use Edge because malware is a much bigger threat to your privacy than any browser, so you need to be sure you're blocking every threat.
@@macsuibhne02 Cookies and ads do worse privacy wise in everyday life. Yes malware is bad, but it's also on the user to be smart and use critical thinking when looking at links and files. Of course protection is good and Firefox has a substantial amount. The rest is on the user. Personally I'll take 7% less detection for the ability to also keep my general everyday privacy too. Malware doesn't happen to the user everyday. Cookies and ads can if you don't have sufficient adblockers which is why I'll take Firefox over Chrome and Edge.
@@zrainyday5266 Cookie and ad blockers can be installed on any browser. If taking steps to protect your privacy is your solution, there are things you can do to protect yourself on any browser equally. If you think that you privacy is protected on Firefox, which is 90% funded by Google and has ads built in by default, you're a fool. You really think advertisers would be happy to hear their ads aren't targeted? Where do you think the ads are served from. Also, if you're so worried about your daily browsing privacy, why are you logged into a Google account right now? Bet you have a Facebook account too. If you think your daily browsing is secure, you're a fool.
@@macsuibhne02 Idk if it's really worth replying considering how needlessly aggressive you're being lol. But I'm going to anyway. And no, no Facebook. Too many pedophiles and such a disgusting app in general. "Cookie and adblockers can be installed on any browser equally." Not in January. V3, remember? Only non-Chromium browsers and/or browsers with fundamentally built in blockers will retain this. So that, in my personal opinion puts Firefox above Chrome in terms of privacy. You can now but what about in just a measly few months? Without web request adblockers won't work properly. And V3 is not fully fledged. It has more exploits than V2 currently due to it's infancy and without adblockers and cookie blockers, you just know malicious ads are going to get through and use those exploits. Hackers will eat that shit up. And I'm aware that Firefox is still taking on V3 but the difference is, it's also keeping web request meaning adblockers, no, all privacy extensions will remain usable and stop said exploits to an extent. It's not completely fool proof but it's better than what Chrome is becoming. Of course there are. Doesn't change that Firefox has objectively better privacy settings than Chrome nor does it change the above paragraph. It's funded by Google as is everything else web related. It doesn't change their current business model. They are still a separate entity with a different company, you know that, right? Mozilla has a different goal in mind. Of course they still want money, that's just business. But their goal is to make a more secure and privacy focused browser whereas Google primarily wants to cater to advertisers and be the leading company on the web. It's likely why the settings for cookies takes much more going out of the way to look for than Firefox's cookies settings. Same with adblocking extensions. Google gives you a brief paragraph that they exist and that's it, the rest is on you and the average user won't bother. Firefox practically serves it on a silver platter lol, being one of the first customizable options it presents to you meaning the average user might take a look. I'd give this more merit if this was only recent but this has been the case for a long time and yet Mozilla is actively breaking Google's models and wants. Probably why Google wants to cut funding tbh. Um... So does Chrome and even Edge? Almost every browser does. Not a problem with blockers, which again, won't exist on Chromium in January unless it's one of those specialized browsers with built in blockers. And no, advertisers aren't happy, it's probably why Google wants to severe the line. Because I need it. I have no choice. Firefox also lets you sync. If I had a choice, things would be different. But it's needed for important things so I have to use it.
Out of sheer curiosity Leo, just how many exe's did it take to crash each of these browsers, Edge looked as though it was on the verge of crashing there, how much many more did take before each of them crashed?
@@pcsecuritychannel I'm not too surprised lol. I mean I don't think it's servers were made for that kind of number. It's enough of a test for other browsers that have more market share and money. Also maybe it's just my computer but Chrome on mine would probably tank at like 100 and Firefox would tank at maybe 70. Idk how you got hundreds on any of those
Brave is pro-NFT, constantly gives crypto related popups, and steals profit from sites by redirecting URLs to ones they profit from. Just another phony privacy browser. I'll stick with Firefox and Tor.
Good stuff Leo. Vivaldi (basically Chrome, uses Blink engine) has a similar download option to discard or keep items that _may_ be dangerous. I'm not sure it's about popularity. It seems to also happen with downloads from unsecure servers.
Trying other chromium based browsers, or browsers made by AV's (avg secure browser, comodo, etc.) would be cool. I guess the malware links would be blocked anyway because it's in the antiviruses signatures and is added to a blacklist for browser protection, but just an idea. Great video as always!
Hey The PC Security Channel. I have question, why not make comparison of browser extensions, which is better to protect from various malicious activities? Like adGuard, NoCoin( antibitcoin mining), or even compare to extensions which offered by various internet security/antivirus companies, avast, kaspersky, and etc.. That would be a greatfull help.. :)
@@hadestemplar1467 Malwarebytes browser guard, norton safe web, web of trust, bitdefender traffic light, AVG/Avast Online security, Emsisoft security, Avira Browser Safety, McAfee WebAdvisor to name a few. McAfee did perform decently but it needs another program to be installed and I've had bad experiences with their AV, so I stay away. Kaspersky performs well too but you'll need the complete AV suite for it to work. I expected bitdefender to perform well but it failed in filtering newer phishing links. Note: ublock origin was always turned on and https mode was turned on for firefox in all the tests.
@@hadestemplar1467 the first test was against phishing links, if they could identify and block random phishing websites that promised free btc or ether and contained links pointing to malicious crypto wallets and fake giveaways. This is also the most common method for the elderly to fall for support scams. The second test was against sites with invalid or expired certificates, if it could identify and warn users, (Trust score). Most websites hosting pirated content don't have legitimate certificates. The third test was regarding websites containing dangerous download links, similar to whats hosted in eicar, if it could block the website or the download of such content.
LOL, you sounded so surprised when Edge, Edged out the competition!! (Sorry I'll show myself out) 🤣 But great video. I have seen many other comments asking for variations of this test. With different browsers and different plug-ins or settings. I would like to see those as well. Also if you could dig deeper into being able to separate out the 2 levels of alerts, that would be useful too. Anyways, thanks Leo!
No, the scans seem to be fast so it's probably just hash comparing. They're probably comparing the downloaded exe's hashes against a malware database containing hash tables.
Not suprised about the results, Edge probably has Defender built-in (application guard is noice btw) and has become a very good browser in general. Chrome and Firefox have expected results at stock settings, but keep in mind that there's alotta extensions and browser settings which can greatly enhance your security with those. Of course .exe viruses are a meme at this point and not your main concern, but it was a nice showcase anyway
Yeah, "it could harm" means its an exe so its not blocking them and everyone just clicks keep. Every program except for googles own exe's, are "blocked"
Here's the thing tho, almost all safe files I've downloaded do not warn on Edge, and when they do, it's either unsigned or from a site that's known to also host viruses, even if it's not the file you downloaded. Also, if people click "keep" than it adds a human variable to virus detection which is impossible to effectively test. The person behind the screen is the weakest security link.
Wouldn't the scores for all browsers massively improve with some stricter settings than default and a few extensions? I will be using Firefox until the day I die anyways and I have the settings on pretty much the strictest they can be without breaking websites plus the usual Extensions like Ublock, PrivacyBadger, DuckDuckgo privacy and some more
I will stick to Firefox. Although it was fun to see how it held up. I use uBlock ads blocker, ghostery, WOT & other plugins plus Kaspesky Anti-Virus with built in firewall that I control what apps on my PC are allowed to access internet.
@@Kepitano You can set Netflix to 4K too. Will it be actually 4K, though? Netflix only allows higher-quality playback on Safari and Edge since it can make use of hardware-level DRM on these browsers. Chrome uses software DRM which Netflix views as a risk. There is an add-on for Chrome that let's you watch Netflix at 1080p, but not higher. And I don't use Safari. So I stream in Edge. It takes a single Google search to find this out yourself. "lol"
is there any way that you can automate to keep the download when edge and chrome asks you? that would be a spot on percentage of detection. Good job on the video!!!
Good video. It would be also interesting if you also tried with "secure" browsers like Brave, Tor Browser, LibreWolf, among others (it would require you to set some settings before, through).
Yeah you can't have it all in the internet world and it's all only so private. But it's sure nice to reduce the amount of metadata you hand over to the tech overlords. If we don't post it they don't need to know about it. That's my philosophy anyhow.
This is a GREAT video! I am looking to see if I should relinquish my AVG Antirvirus that I pay for, or switch to another provider. I'll look through your videos to see about an AVG paid review rate. I see tons of videos for the FREE AVG but what about the paid or subscriber version? I use AVG because they are device friendly and I cover all of my devices with AVG.
Suggestion - run the same test for 300 random, not popular, legitimate files/links to see the True to False Positive Ratio - which to common user is probably more significant. Chrome warnings are great examples, per your point, users used to download executable files, will be use to bypass the warning. This is true for behaviour based protection in general imo, see putty and other (legitimate) Apps/RATs warnings.
@@ardeof that's ok, the point still stands, just with SolarWinds instead of putty. To be fair, i don't expect a browser to be a 'security control', but if we're testing it as one, we might as well enumerate its practical impact (which message/warning fatigue is a big part of when not blocking).
What if we put some safe exe files for testing? For example 275 malicious exe files + 25 safe exe files. So we can decide if the browser automaticly warning for all exe files or doing a real security check.
As a programmer who is somethat knowledgeable in statistics and data science, I think this is a very lazy approach and a bad test. If you want to test something like this, you need to set it up in a way that allows you to rate sensitivity AND specificity. Your test only ranks by sensitivity. The problem with that is that false positives do not have any negative consequences. The more you block, the better it gets. So if you block everything - legitimate or malware - you'll get perfect score. Or to illustrate it even more extreme: a browser that doesn't have a download feature at all would also score a perfect score here, even though it's utterly useless in everyday life. You need to include some wanted downloads and detect on a per-file basis whether the download succeeded or not; and to make this a valuable video, you should also go the extra meter and count by hand how many of those files were blocked and how many were just warned about but would be accessible if you press the wrong button. Saying you can't automate it is a lazy excuse - if you're interested in educating people, you should put in the work.
I would like to see you test this with other browsers as well! My two would be brave and TOR. Additionally, I would love to see this test with browsers and the difference with them using addons.
@@TheStevenWhiting Yes, but it's significantly modified particularly for security purposes, it's likely that certain changes such as javascript being blocked by default would increase the success ratio for blocking
Even though Firefox comes out as the worst in this test, I keep using it. I've been using it for over 20 years and I'm good. I tried Chrome once but that browser kept deleting my shortcuts and resetting to it's original state (as if it was freshly installed) every 2 weeks and even cleared my homepage and such settings. Uninstalled it after it did that twice and never looked back. Haven't tested Edge as I'm still using Windows 7 on the same machine for over 12 years now and it still does the job just fine. BTW, can you install an adblocker on Chrome, since Google is trying to disable all adblockers on all browsers and Chrome is developed by them? I guess not, so watching youtube on chrome would be a pain I guess (not sure because it doesn't work properly on my system as described above).
You just sound like a boomer who doesn't understand technology. Yes, you can use adblocker on chrome and I've never had any of my chrome settings reset in the last 10+ years I've used it so that sounds like a you problem not a chrome problem.
I don't understand the intention of this test. If I want to know a browsers hardness, I would be more interested knowing the driveby vulnerabilities detection rate, not for malicious exe download detection. Those exe files don't use the browser as an attack vector at all, but the OS itself, so I would be interestedin the OS or anti malware solution detection rate rather than the browser's smartscreen stuff.
Hi there, love the videos! Have you done a test with Secure DNS? like Quad9 etc against malware links. Would be cool to see if Quad9, Cisco umbrella, and all those, how they work.
Idk if you've tried this but, if you want to test more links you could always wait until the connection to the site has completed then close the tab and move on potentially allowing you to cycle through unlimited links. Also you could have just used a CLI tool so it's not as system intensive (ik it looks less cool though). but all we care about is if we connected or not, so looking at what was loaded is kind of irrelevant. Anyways cool vid, i've always like the "browser test series" of things
Yes, I have tried it, but it would just be too slow for the purposes of making a video as the multitude of links would be stuck waiting in the queue rather than downloading parallelly.
Now imagine how long it would take. You can blast your browser with 300 pages in less than 5 seconds, or wait for page to load which also can take up to 10 seconds. Even if it takes 1 second to fully load the page, it is 300 seconds = 7-8 minutes. But most sites take at least 3 seconds to load, so its literally half an hour to check 300 sites compared to 5 seconds.
Now it would be interesting to see a better understanding of how Edge manages it's 100% detection, is it attempting some kind of sandbox with defender to do active testing before displaying a result or is it all MS database based.
Personally, as a Firefox user, I've seen less false positives from it as opposed to Chrome (in both browsers some bad files ocassionaly do slip through the cracks)
Very interesting test. I didn't expect Edge could perform better. I'd really like to see how Brave browser would also perform. Brave is gaining a lot of popularity lately because of it's headlining feature of Privacy and security in mind. Well I suggest we put it to the test.
Brave is pro-NFT, constantly gives crypto related popups, and steals profit from sites by redirecting URLs to ones they profit from. Just another phony privacy browser. I'll stick with Firefox and Tor.
I've been using Brave for years on both my Linux laptop and Android. It's pretty good. As anything on the internet it's only so private. Firefox with the right settings and plugins is the only other viable option it seems. Brave is my preferred Android browser for now.
Honestly, I love using Edge now. Since it's almost the same as Chrome. Plus, Chrome Extensions are also compatible with Edge, so I can't really see any downside. (At least for me).
I switched from chrome to Edge nearly 2 years ago and I haven't gotten a single complaint compared to chrome (also tried firefox but didn't feel right). Overall solid browser with decent ui customisation and significantly lower ram use than other browsers (altho I've heard opera gx is quite solid too). Great video!
Opera gx Is great but the clean UI in edge is timeless, after you get used to opera gx initially great features you start to feel... Weird using it, you start to notice all the details and how super hyper gamer it looks... I don't know how to explain
I am in the boat of count all keepable downloads as misses. Its not helping if everything you download casually has the same „warning“. The one that always shouts „wolf!“ will be ignored fast!
@@GigantTech And Google Chrome is just Chromium. Your point being? Most browsers nowadays apart from Firefox and Safari are based on Chromium, so the way they are configured does require testing. Brave is more privacy focused, which could mean that it does have as many security features enabled out of the box
Edge is a corporate approved browser. No surprise that it's really secure. Really surprised that Firefox block slightly less than Chrome, but Chrome is still a huge liability when it comes to privacy.
May be late, but Edge only won because it considers all .exe-files as dangerous and asks for confirmation before downloading them. You should do the test again but disable the security question before, in all 3 browsers.
I'm impressed with Edge! 👏🏻 As for the dual warning from Edge and Chrome... They could have easily made it all just "blocked", but they are trying to give the user some options in the process. I see those alternate warnings as a full block.
Edge is getting better by the day imo. i initially liked it because i was living in china and it was easy to work with it, unlike any google software that was blocked, and also i could work with the windows/android/edge/cloud microsoft provides for free. so i kinda get an all in one 2FA/password manager + cloud on all my devices, that alone eliminated so much hassle when it came to security management. now i see this, edge better at blocking malwares, and the recent news about chatGPT being included in the next Edge builds. i feel like not using Edge would be a mistake, it seems to be a superior browser in so many ways. If you use windows, login to your microsoft account on a reinstall of windows, your edge browser on first start is already configured with your settings, and even your extensions you had installed. so you have almost nothing to manage or reinstall everytime. such a time saver.
@@jobslolo7387 Edge is defo getting better each day, the other day they announced a whole new ui update. Same with bing, bing chat and image AI is incredible
Edge got 100% because the "do you want to download this anyways?" ones were counted as a full block, as said in the video. The thing is, those popups appear for most, if not ALL .exe files you download from Edge, so good and bad ones get the same result, as long as the file extension is .exe
Leo I got a Trojan malware from pen drive and bit defender blocked it. it was a lnk file I tried to select auto select what to do. but it said the file was modified so cannot be quarantined. I later formatted the pendrive and it showed the malware was deleted what do I do next.
ive experience a LOT of times the "this type of file can harm your computer" when downloading ANY popular minecraft mod. because they tend to come in .jar files. and even if those files have been downloaded like 100,000 times, Edge will still say that prompt. which i understand, but it is annoying to see that every single time i update the "sodium" mod lol
pro tip: Edge is basically Chrom(e)(ium) -(outdated usually) - with added MS spyware. And just because it blocks "more" program hashes doesn't make it more secure.
What happens in the browser is pretty interesting, especially when you do this analysis things start to come to light. I would have gone deeper though and reversed some binaries to understand why these tools blocks these particular flagged websites vs new malware. Seems like the approach for both black and white hats is deeply native
I think the test should be not just 300 malicious files, but a mix of legit and bad exes, to see also how many false positives there are
Microsoft edge hates minecraft mods
@@thecommentato4 lmao
@@thecommentato4 i mean jar files are really sus. Even chrome hates them
This.
@@marranin007 edge is based on chromium. Firefox is bette
The primary problem with that test methodology is the dataset itself. You source the dataset from any list or combination of lists. The browser developers basically do the same thing to feed their malware or malicious site detecting algorithm, which is possibly just as simple as "compare the checksums or URLs". So as long as they have a superset of these lists, they are guaranteed to perform well.
More interesting is e.g. what happens if you create slightly altered, functionally equivalent mutations of existing malware (e.g. by replacing xor %eax, %eax with mov %eax, 0 for example) or to download these files from benign looking URLs.
Or "sub %eax,%eax", which is the same length and very similar in its bit pattern.
Anyways, testing independent browsers like Brave and Palemoon is important for any comparison to be fair.
😵💫
certainly one wouldnt want to just use this method to test whether a browser is secure or not but as a proof of concept python script i think its ONE way to test your browsers security features which can spoke interest, discussion or inspiration like with what you mention, and that's the real value of this video, in my opinion.
I would go even further and say that the test itself is pretty pointless: It's not testing how secure the browser is, but how good the blacklists are.
Scanning for malicious files or sites is merely a bonus to assist the low brow users from _downloading_ malware from suspicious sites.
Doesn't help if the browser is susceptible to HTML-based or Javascript attacks (i.e. malformed images or javascript exploits causing buffer overflows etc), and you can't test these with some file downloads, even if you try it with a million files.
I think it's the point of the test. Between the browsers, to see which one keeps up with these the best.
This man must have at least 100GB ram to have 300 chrome tabs open 😂
The ratio seems alright
I'm sorry, but the number you have dialed is out of service.
Lol I had 400 open just a month or two ago. I've whittled it down to just over 100 now though. I only have 32gb of ram and only at most used up slightly more than half of it with 400 tabs open.
Most tabs get set to inactive when too much are open. Linus Tech Tips made a video about it.
@@anotherone3284 ^ This I also use a tab suspender kind of thing when a tab is inactive for more than like 10 minutes or something so I don't eat up all my resources as I regularly have a crap load of tabs open 😂.
That is pretty cool. I'm still going to use Firefox though (although boosted with various add-ons). I know this was just a simple test but it's not so much browser security as browser security for downloading specific malware. That's not the only possible sort of attack and just because it's good at protecting against bad downloads, doesn't mean it protects against other vulnerabilities. It's also important to know how many safe downloads are incorrectly blocked. A browser which by default blocks all downloads would score 100% on this test but it would be a terrible browser.
I know where your coming from, I've been using Firefox with a lot of addons for years, I wish I could find them all for Edge!
I used to use Firefox then i moved to Edge, I couldn't stay long as it didn't even hava a good enough proxy extension so moved back to Firefox.
@@NicolastheThird-h6m Yeah, Firefox must have the most extensions out of all the browsers, thanks for reminding me, I thought there might be a DuckDuckGo browser for Windows but nope, I would be installing it right now since I just I searched for it... =8^/
You mentioned that Chrome/Edge had the notice of "not commonly downloaded" insinuating it was specific to them, but Firefox displayed virtually the exact same warning on many of the files. Arguably Firefox had an even better rate because its blocked % was 93% not counting any warnings (which were counted on the other two browsers).
the most used browser will be targeted the most, so maybe we can expect firefox and edge to do best ?
@@artbell259 That... doesn't make sense. "The most used browser will be targeted the most, therefore the second-most used browser will be the best, i.e. not targeted at all". Following your logic, it should be a completely unknown browser.
As for whether completely unknown browsers actually are safe, not really? Unless you have already patched every single bug in that browser, which is practically impossible to do, all you are relying on is security through obscurity, and if there's a cross-browser exploit, who will care to patch the unknown browser?
Firefox lacks a robust smart screen. But using norton safeweb addon for firefox has changed changed the game literally. It even filters out most phishing links, which is impressive.
@@himankan firefox doesn’t lack a proper smartscreen, it has one built in, and norton sucks.
@@doge7831 I've been using firefox for more than a decade and have recently tested it against a good number of malicious links.
Then I went testing almost all security addons, including BD Traffic light, mwb, wot, safeweb, avast/avg, emsisoft, avira etc.
Safeweb was the only one that performed on par with edge. The other addons failed miserably, even with ublock origin and https mode enabled.
Good test, but I think a better one would be with just websites and no downloads. Might be a bit more difficult to do. Maybe open a page, and check if most of the page is red, and then close it again. This I think would be better because most browsers won't download exe-files that are uncommon. Also would be great if used with a list of very fresh links.
Edge doesn't deserve the amount of hate it gets. I have been a chrome user for the last 5 years or so but have started trying edge because of instability issues in chrome. From what i have seen, Egde is superior to chrome in almost every aspect. It is a lot more stable, consumes same or less resources than chrome, and has decent ui.
And dont forget the vertical tabs. I cant use any other browser now.
Firefox has vertical tabs extensions, I've installed and I'm using it since I learned that from using Edge at work.
@@eeka_droid firefox uses more resources in video decoding. About twice as much on my laptop. Which decreases my laptop's battery life a lot. That was my main reason for leaving firefox.
Try CCleaner Browser and Adguard security extension (with security filters enabled). After using them together, you won't go back to Chrome, Edge or Firefox.
My beef with edge is how strongly Microsoft tries to force it on you. Even just "updating" settings to trick you back to edge. I used edge for a while on a windows s machine and it works but I don't think it's better or worse than chrome. (Other than Microsofts attempts making me hate it)
I am surprised by these results, as a lifelong Firefox user i am happy to see that it holds up and also surprised how strong Edge is. Great video and a note i will stick to Firefox.
edge is actually really good now you should try it
I love firefox
@@ad1340yt Not OP but but thanks. It’s based on Blink and I don’t want Blink and WebKit to be the only rendering engines in town. The dominance of Blink is bad enough as it is. I’ll use Firefox and support them as much as I can because I don’t want one company to completely dominate the Internet as Microsoft did with IE. Companies have a terrible history of abusing that level of power.
@@RU-qv3jl no blink should take over the world
@@RU-qv3jl agree with you 👌
FireFox ain't chromium so Imma stick to that.
There are rumors that Google will stop funding Mozilla in 2023, so I'm curious if Firefox can survive with a $450 million hole in its financial budget.
@@DevishMend It would've after the manifest v2 thing by Google but they delayed it and so yea monopoly brrrr
@@DevishMend me waiting for the lawsuits for Google being monopolistic, anticonsumer and having to break up 👴
Mozilla is a WEF partner so I’m sure they’ll be fine
@@avpr1c Uh-huh... Because saying things you were told by unreliable people who have hugely antisemitic tendencies, is such a needed thing, I guess🙄
Enthusiast Edge user here, I know, we're rare.. When I get the prompt for an unpopular file, I usually double check to see if it's not some sketchy file, unless it's from a trusted website, then I just keep it.
Exactly. Whenever I get this warning I just copy the download link and paste in online virus scan to check manually. My ratio for these files is 50-50. 50% of the time it does help me avoid downloading something I don't trust already.
I always delete it unless it's 100% trustworthy like blender or shotcut as an Edge user.
Great video, thanks. I would still stick to Firefox Nightly with Edge as a backup, and Chrome not being installed at all on the machines, but it is good to know the spyware browser is good against malware (yes, I know the irony of TH-cam and Chrome coming from the same company)
I'm pretty similar to you, but with regular Firefox and Edge without ever installing Chrome on anything, lol.
would be good to also test Brave, Tor, Vavaldi, and Opera
Don't know how he would do tor browser. I think the urls are just a lot of random characters like letters and numbers, and I don't know if there is a repository of tor browser malware installation links. Plus I don't think there are any safety measures to prevent malware on tor.
Vivaldi in an Opera?
@@glowgold868 Tor is also widely used for "normal sites" and is also the browser with the most safety measures against malware and hardening out of ALL common browsers, because that is the point of using it in the first place.
@@zun1777 I see. But I think the results of testing the tor browser would be a waste of time if you could estimate the results. If its hardening of all common browsers, I think it would miss at max 10.
@@glowgold868 yup
I've just one question...
Why did you not include the obvious winner, Opera? Perhaps it was for better entertainment or it would've been a no contest and winner by default if Opera was in the mix too!
Can you do this test with Brave and Vilvaldi?
Been binging all of your videos since I found your channel Late yesterday. Now it's 4AM soon to be 5 and I'm still watching.
Thx for testing, showing and teaching us the ways to stay safe on the web and keeping our own information private and secure.
Agree with some previous posts. It would be interesting to see some tests on how these browsers perform with Malwarebytes browser guard and Unlock Origin plugins... then also a separate test if you change your dns to maybe Cloudflare's protected DNS servers or OpenDNS malware/adult protection dns servers.
Norton safe web addon for firefox performs way better than browser guard and almost all browser security addons I've tested so far.
@@himankan Please stop trying to shove your norton addon down people's throats. You spammed every comment with your addon. We get it, you either work at Norton or you know someone who does. But that does not mean you can harass for your own personal gain.
Malwarebytes is all we need, thanks.
@@angrysocialjusticewarrior I, or anyone I know have no remote relation with that company. Secondly now you're promoting another av addon. The reason why I'm saying what I've been saying is because people hate norton and rightly so. I have hated them for their recent practices too. But the performance of that addon surprised me when tested against real world malicious links. Now when I say this, it's not to promote but hopefully somebody will give it a thought to test it for themselves.
I agree it would be interesting, but it wouldn't be representative of anything that is useful to derive information from for standard users. Standard users are only in the past several years even deciding to download different browsers aside from the default, much less changing DNS. And most users familiar with such things aren't particularly in danger of these malicious links in the first place.
Double it and give it to the next person
Could you also include Opera GX for this kind of testing? That browser is growing in popularity.
It would be really interesting how Brave performs in this test considering it's also Chromium based like Edge. Anyway - great video! 👍
Chromium plays no part in the security right here.
Edge has its own protection against malware.
@@xE92vD I think what he means is that Brave might have extra protection like Edge
Thanks Asux - I get that. Brave focuses mainly on privacy and blocks cross-site trackers, third-party cookies, fingerprinting, bounce tracking, and malware/phishing attempts, but I don't know about download security. It's not that easy to test this yourself, so I think it would be an interesting topic.
@@yna50bc THX - That's exactly what I've meant 😅
@@simimik. What about brave adblock 🤨
Can you also check “default host application”?
Kidding. My main request is actually false positives since I get those a lot when I use windows (I usually use macOS)
It would have been good to have 300 maleware addresses and 300 legitimate addresses. I'm suspicious of Edge's 100% detection rate.
This. False positives matter, because if they're too common, it will only teach the user to ignore the warnings.
@@enemixius exactly
@@enemixius i use edge and download many programs and never had a false positive
Same. I don't think it's "false positives", I think there's some quirk about how this is being measured where it measures edge as having a 100% detection rate when it actually doesn't, and I think if we used legitimate addresses it would "protect" against all those too (even though in reality it's not protecting against nearly as much).
@@Person01234 its the hash that is important if it detects one or not
I've seen lots of tests like these, but none of them address the question I would like to see answered. They generally test how secure/performant/etc. an application is out of the box with default settings, when I want to know how well an application can be made to work through configuration adjustments. I want the app with the best potential, because that's what I'm going to tweak it to and home in on before settling in for the long term.
It's a more difficult thing to test, I know, but it would be interesting to test an app with its default settings vs with settings adjusted by an expert user (or more than one).
I feel like there should be more content like this. It seems like this should garner more interest than it seems to.
Do the same test for brave
I've always found the security of most browsers to be comparable. My decision usually comes down to privacy. In that regard, I use FireFox because of it's many debloated forks in tandem with the ability to manually disable settings that I believe are an invasion of my online privacy. Sure, with Chrome you can do this too. And chromium forks like Brave exist. But trying to debloat Chrome is a major pain in the a$$ when compared to Firefox. With Firefox the devs have put thought into the fact that some people will want to disable certain settings for privacy reasons, and they made that option available. With Chrome, it's quite clear the devs didn't want people to disable certain tracking elements and have gone out of their way to hide certain variables and functions from the user. I realize that I didn't mention edge, so I'll mention it now. Edge exists. That's all, moving on.
Would love to see Brave, Opera and Vivaldi next
Great Video but why did you leave out important topic?
Some sites that are bad can now hijack browsers by simply going to a webpage/website.
So during your test where any of the broswers hijacked?
Edge also has an enhanced security mode that according to Microsoft blocks JIT javascript code and has sandboxing built in
Wonder how good it truly is
That sounds like a really good tool if you have older people or children using the browser
@@HanabiiiUwU It’s better to have something like that in the browser than nothing
I'm impressed with your objectivity.
I've seen internet jokes about one-and-done Edge, only used to download Chrome.
I get the impression that Chrome and Firefox have much better brands in general.
Still, for your experiment found that Edge was the best and you presented that result.
Thank you for not just telling me what I want to hear.
Thank you for not placating the expectations of the biggest audience for clicks.
He wasn't objective. At all. He called Chrome and Edge "this file is unknown and weird" warnings "detections", which is stupid and blatantly shows you the biggest difference between these three browsers: that two of the three of them are openly spying on their users and sending data back to Google and Microsoft on downloaded files and god knows what else. Even without having to spy on its users, Firefox still detected on 93%. And I mean actually detected, not "hurr durr this file is weird none of my spyware data has noticed it".
The internet memes are trust breaking, now i trust swiper the fox more than the internetters
@@8xus_1 Swiper, no swiping. Swiper no swiping. Swiper... aww...dang it...
I'm actually surprised Edge was better. I've been using Edge for a while. Despite Microsoft's shittyness sometimes, they do have a good browser here. Been using it for one year now, it's really easy to use, much better than Chrome (which I used for over 10 years)
they're on point for the technologies they bother to develop, it's just the problem is that they drop a lot of their own tech seemingly out of nowhere sometimes. off the top of my head, Silverlight and XNA as examples
It can't really be "much" better than Chrome because Microsoft switched to Chromium relatively recently, Chrome's open-source engine. Before the switch the old Edge could not really keep up competitively, now they run about the same speed wise.
@@freecomkcf Windows Defender SmartScreen has been around for a while now, and Windows Defender even longer. Originally Windows Defender was an embarrassing anti-virus but now it's really good and probably has a massive database of signatures. As far as Edge goes itself, it's literally just modified Chromium, so they probably only touched 1% to make it work, and added 10% more to make it Microsoft.
For me, a Firefox user, the main reason I refuse Edge is purely because MS tries to shove it down my throat every oportunity they get, perhaps if they stopped doing such things I'd actually try it out and make an objective desicion about it.
@@Felipe_9999 Even MS Office will archive user data until an internet connection is established then send it to Microsoft. That means Microsoft is logging what you do even when offline. Get outta the rat trap that is Microsoft Windows. I'd love to say switch to Linux, but most people don't take too kindly to that nowadays, even though it's way better.
A few seconds in, but I had to comment. So refreshing to click on a random click and the TH-camr just jumps right into it.
Great video as always! Maybe you could do a similar test but via DNS that have security filters?
E.g Cloudflare DNS, Quad9, NextDNS and AdGuard DNS?
@@wooshbait36 thanks for you detailed contribution
I'm also interested in a DNS test.
Add pihole to the mix
@@wooshbait36 no one asked you. Go back into your hole
Many of those use similar block lists. But yeah there will be some differences.
I've personally noticed that Chrome Enhanced mode does make a difference with a decent amount of malicious sites especially ones that don't necessarily contain malware but instead are spam/scam sites that pop up with warnings that "Microsoft/McAfee/etc. has detected that your computer is compromised/infected/etc"
You could've added some delay in opening the tabs, and fix the number of opened tabs, say at 20. When a site fully loads/downloads the exe, you can close it afterwards. I think it is possible to do with selenium, that way a lot more sites could've been added. Although it might take a bit longer than opening all the sites at once.
Also, it would be interesting to run the test on the same browser multiple times and see if the detection ratio is same. I think opening all the tabs at once may overload the requests and some of the sites may not load correctly.
Did you do a manual count of the entries, where you could hit the 'keep' button?
In my company, i see that messagt for almost every file, even for our own sharepoint site.
Nice video, but my antivirus will already block them all. Secondly I would prefer Firefox for privacy. True edge and chrome do better in this test when we look at blocking malware etc but I am curious to know what choice you would make when privacy is very important as well.
If privacy is your concern then you have to use Edge because malware is a much bigger threat to your privacy than any browser, so you need to be sure you're blocking every threat.
@@macsuibhne02 if privacy is a concern, use your brain and don't download random BS...
@@macsuibhne02 Cookies and ads do worse privacy wise in everyday life. Yes malware is bad, but it's also on the user to be smart and use critical thinking when looking at links and files. Of course protection is good and Firefox has a substantial amount. The rest is on the user. Personally I'll take 7% less detection for the ability to also keep my general everyday privacy too. Malware doesn't happen to the user everyday. Cookies and ads can if you don't have sufficient adblockers which is why I'll take Firefox over Chrome and Edge.
@@zrainyday5266 Cookie and ad blockers can be installed on any browser. If taking steps to protect your privacy is your solution, there are things you can do to protect yourself on any browser equally.
If you think that you privacy is protected on Firefox, which is 90% funded by Google and has ads built in by default, you're a fool. You really think advertisers would be happy to hear their ads aren't targeted? Where do you think the ads are served from. Also, if you're so worried about your daily browsing privacy, why are you logged into a Google account right now? Bet you have a Facebook account too. If you think your daily browsing is secure, you're a fool.
@@macsuibhne02 Idk if it's really worth replying considering how needlessly aggressive you're being lol. But I'm going to anyway. And no, no Facebook. Too many pedophiles and such a disgusting app in general.
"Cookie and adblockers can be installed on any browser equally." Not in January. V3, remember? Only non-Chromium browsers and/or browsers with fundamentally built in blockers will retain this. So that, in my personal opinion puts Firefox above Chrome in terms of privacy. You can now but what about in just a measly few months? Without web request adblockers won't work properly. And V3 is not fully fledged. It has more exploits than V2 currently due to it's infancy and without adblockers and cookie blockers, you just know malicious ads are going to get through and use those exploits. Hackers will eat that shit up. And I'm aware that Firefox is still taking on V3 but the difference is, it's also keeping web request meaning adblockers, no, all privacy extensions will remain usable and stop said exploits to an extent. It's not completely fool proof but it's better than what Chrome is becoming.
Of course there are. Doesn't change that Firefox has objectively better privacy settings than Chrome nor does it change the above paragraph. It's funded by Google as is everything else web related. It doesn't change their current business model. They are still a separate entity with a different company, you know that, right? Mozilla has a different goal in mind. Of course they still want money, that's just business. But their goal is to make a more secure and privacy focused browser whereas Google primarily wants to cater to advertisers and be the leading company on the web. It's likely why the settings for cookies takes much more going out of the way to look for than Firefox's cookies settings. Same with adblocking extensions. Google gives you a brief paragraph that they exist and that's it, the rest is on you and the average user won't bother. Firefox practically serves it on a silver platter lol, being one of the first customizable options it presents to you meaning the average user might take a look. I'd give this more merit if this was only recent but this has been the case for a long time and yet Mozilla is actively breaking Google's models and wants. Probably why Google wants to cut funding tbh.
Um... So does Chrome and even Edge? Almost every browser does. Not a problem with blockers, which again, won't exist on Chromium in January unless it's one of those specialized browsers with built in blockers. And no, advertisers aren't happy, it's probably why Google wants to severe the line.
Because I need it. I have no choice. Firefox also lets you sync. If I had a choice, things would be different. But it's needed for important things so I have to use it.
Out of sheer curiosity Leo, just how many exe's did it take to crash each of these browsers, Edge looked as though it was on the verge of crashing there, how much many more did take before each of them crashed?
Firefox was the drawback here. The other browsers could do 500+ no problem.
@@pcsecuritychannel I'm not too surprised lol. I mean I don't think it's servers were made for that kind of number. It's enough of a test for other browsers that have more market share and money. Also maybe it's just my computer but Chrome on mine would probably tank at like 100 and Firefox would tank at maybe 70. Idk how you got hundreds on any of those
I'd love to see this test done using some more obscure browsers like opera gx and brave
Those aren't exactly obscure, but yes more browsers would be good
Also Safari if they can somehow get a Mac VM
Brave is pro-NFT, constantly gives crypto related popups, and steals profit from sites by redirecting URLs to ones they profit from. Just another phony privacy browser. I'll stick with Firefox and Tor.
Good stuff Leo.
Vivaldi (basically Chrome, uses Blink engine) has a similar download option to discard or keep items that _may_ be dangerous. I'm not sure it's about popularity. It seems to also happen with downloads from unsecure servers.
Vivaldi always considers every exe to be "possibly dangerous" and asks if we want to discard or keep it.
Thank you for the video. Have you tested Brave, Vivaldi and Opera?
I’m not surprised that edge did very well as it uses defender which is a fair antivirus as it is.
where's the script, can we test our own browser? like safari/opera etc .... can u share it ?
Trying other chromium based browsers, or browsers made by AV's (avg secure browser, comodo, etc.) would be cool. I guess the malware links would be blocked anyway because it's in the antiviruses signatures and is added to a blacklist for browser protection, but just an idea. Great video as always!
My pc got hacked years ago when i was using comodo... Hope they've improved lol
Heck no. Never use AVG stuff, comodo is not that great as well.
thanks for the upload. did you try it with unlock origin with all its malicious filters on?
Hey The PC Security Channel. I have question, why not make comparison of browser extensions, which is better to protect from various malicious activities?
Like adGuard, NoCoin( antibitcoin mining), or even compare to extensions which offered by various internet security/antivirus companies, avast, kaspersky, and etc..
That would be a greatfull help.. :)
I've tried all of them and norton safeweb addon came out on top. Literally nothing got past it, not even phishing links.
@@himankan
Can you provide the list which extensions you have used?
@@hadestemplar1467 Malwarebytes browser guard, norton safe web, web of trust, bitdefender traffic light, AVG/Avast Online security, Emsisoft security, Avira Browser Safety, McAfee WebAdvisor to name a few.
McAfee did perform decently but it needs another program to be installed and I've had bad experiences with their AV, so I stay away.
Kaspersky performs well too but you'll need the complete AV suite for it to work. I expected bitdefender to perform well but it failed in filtering newer phishing links.
Note: ublock origin was always turned on and https mode was turned on for firefox in all the tests.
@@himankan and may to hear in which way testings where done and to which elements where primary focused?
@@hadestemplar1467 the first test was against phishing links, if they could identify and block random phishing websites that promised free btc or ether and contained links pointing to malicious crypto wallets and fake giveaways. This is also the most common method for the elderly to fall for support scams.
The second test was against sites with invalid or expired certificates, if it could identify and warn users, (Trust score). Most websites hosting pirated content don't have legitimate certificates.
The third test was regarding websites containing dangerous download links, similar to whats hosted in eicar, if it could block the website or the download of such content.
2:30 can someone explain why smaller or 0kb files and partially downloaded files are not harmful?
LOL, you sounded so surprised when Edge, Edged out the competition!! (Sorry I'll show myself out) 🤣
But great video. I have seen many other comments asking for variations of this test. With different browsers and different plug-ins or settings. I would like to see those as well. Also if you could dig deeper into being able to separate out the 2 levels of alerts, that would be useful too. Anyways, thanks Leo!
ba dum tss! 😀
I'm just wondering where any actual antivirus protection is sitting in this. Are malware scans being run on the downloaded exes?
No, the scans seem to be fast so it's probably just hash comparing. They're probably comparing the downloaded exe's hashes against a malware database containing hash tables.
I'd be interested to see how Brave does in this scenario.
Not suprised about the results, Edge probably has Defender built-in (application guard is noice btw) and has become a very good browser in general. Chrome and Firefox have expected results at stock settings, but keep in mind that there's alotta extensions and browser settings which can greatly enhance your security with those.
Of course .exe viruses are a meme at this point and not your main concern, but it was a nice showcase anyway
Yeah, "it could harm" means its an exe so its not blocking them and everyone just clicks keep. Every program except for googles own exe's, are "blocked"
Here's the thing tho, almost all safe files I've downloaded do not warn on Edge, and when they do, it's either unsigned or from a site that's known to also host viruses, even if it's not the file you downloaded. Also, if people click "keep" than it adds a human variable to virus detection which is impossible to effectively test. The person behind the screen is the weakest security link.
What you meant to say in the title was "Firefox vs. Chrome vs. Chrome." Edge is really just Chrome.
Wouldn't the scores for all browsers massively improve with some stricter settings than default and a few extensions? I will be using Firefox until the day I die anyways and I have the settings on pretty much the strictest they can be without breaking websites plus the usual Extensions like Ublock, PrivacyBadger, DuckDuckgo privacy and some more
DuckDuckGo sells your data though.
I will stick to Firefox. Although it was fun to see how it held up. I use uBlock ads blocker, ghostery, WOT & other plugins plus Kaspesky Anti-Virus with built in firewall that I control what apps on my PC are allowed to access internet.
We need you to add another one browsers, Brave!
Can you try doing this with Brave, Vivaldi and Opera?
I was using Edge because it has so many useful features and helps using Microsoft products. After this video, also because it seems safer!
I use streaming services, mainly Netflix, on PC. Edge is the only one that allows streaming at higher than 720p resolution.
@@Kepitano You can set Netflix to 4K too. Will it be actually 4K, though?
Netflix only allows higher-quality playback on Safari and Edge since it can make use of hardware-level DRM on these browsers. Chrome uses software DRM which Netflix views as a risk.
There is an add-on for Chrome that let's you watch Netflix at 1080p, but not higher. And I don't use Safari. So I stream in Edge.
It takes a single Google search to find this out yourself. "lol"
You do realize that Microsoft tracks everything you do on Edge, don't you? Edge is not secure at all, even less is Chrome because they do the same.
@@HeavenlyWarrior microsoft are smart, they know that if they did that, their reputation wouldnt even exist anymore
He lies, case closed
@@8xus_1 If they did that? It's not if, they do that. lol
I wish you had a test like this and added Brave. That's the browser I use all the time at home and work.
is there any way that you can automate to keep the download when edge and chrome asks you? that would be a spot on percentage of detection. Good job on the video!!!
Theres settings you can tweak
Can you include Brave browser? Curious to know where it stands.
This is great, every Windows user could learn from this channel.😄
opera gx is the same as chrome right? so you dont need to do that right? but if its diff then pls do that too
Good video. It would be also interesting if you also tried with "secure" browsers like Brave, Tor Browser, LibreWolf, among others (it would require you to set some settings before, through).
It's worth noting that there's a difference between secure, private, and anonymous
Yeah you can't have it all in the internet world and it's all only so private. But it's sure nice to reduce the amount of metadata you hand over to the tech overlords. If we don't post it they don't need to know about it. That's my philosophy anyhow.
@@hotrodjones74 Same goes for me.
This is a GREAT video! I am looking to see if I should relinquish my AVG Antirvirus that I pay for, or switch to another provider. I'll look through your videos to see about an AVG paid review rate. I see tons of videos for the FREE AVG but what about the paid or subscriber version? I use AVG because they are device friendly and I cover all of my devices with AVG.
Suggestion - run the same test for 300 random, not popular, legitimate files/links to see the True to False Positive Ratio - which to common user is probably more significant.
Chrome warnings are great examples, per your point, users used to download executable files, will be use to bypass the warning.
This is true for behaviour based protection in general imo, see putty and other (legitimate) Apps/RATs warnings.
Wasn't putty infected recently? Something along those lines.
@@ardeof Very true, ya..
@@ardeof I thought it was only a modified infected version of putty that was being distributed around, but not an official version.
@@pikenote Ah yeah now that i'm looking at it, it's a "trojanized version of putty" not the putty source itself that was affected.
@@ardeof that's ok, the point still stands, just with SolarWinds instead of putty.
To be fair, i don't expect a browser to be a 'security control', but if we're testing it as one, we might as well enumerate its practical impact (which message/warning fatigue is a big part of when not blocking).
What if we put some safe exe files for testing?
For example 275 malicious exe files + 25 safe exe files.
So we can decide if the browser automaticly warning for all exe files or doing a real security check.
As a programmer who is somethat knowledgeable in statistics and data science, I think this is a very lazy approach and a bad test. If you want to test something like this, you need to set it up in a way that allows you to rate sensitivity AND specificity. Your test only ranks by sensitivity. The problem with that is that false positives do not have any negative consequences. The more you block, the better it gets. So if you block everything - legitimate or malware - you'll get perfect score.
Or to illustrate it even more extreme: a browser that doesn't have a download feature at all would also score a perfect score here, even though it's utterly useless in everyday life. You need to include some wanted downloads and detect on a per-file basis whether the download succeeded or not; and to make this a valuable video, you should also go the extra meter and count by hand how many of those files were blocked and how many were just warned about but would be accessible if you press the wrong button. Saying you can't automate it is a lazy excuse - if you're interested in educating people, you should put in the work.
What's the wallpaper? Can you share the link please? 😊 Keep doing greatness!
I would like to see you test this with other browsers as well! My two would be brave and TOR. Additionally, I would love to see this test with browsers and the difference with them using addons.
TOR is Firefox.
@@TheStevenWhiting It is a modified version of Firefox which is why I am curious if there is any differences.
@@TheStevenWhiting Yes, but it's significantly modified particularly for security purposes, it's likely that certain changes such as javascript being blocked by default would increase the success ratio for blocking
@@fotnite_ True
Could you do some privacy focused browsers like Brave?
Even though Firefox comes out as the worst in this test, I keep using it. I've been using it for over 20 years and I'm good. I tried Chrome once but that browser kept deleting my shortcuts and resetting to it's original state (as if it was freshly installed) every 2 weeks and even cleared my homepage and such settings. Uninstalled it after it did that twice and never looked back. Haven't tested Edge as I'm still using Windows 7 on the same machine for over 12 years now and it still does the job just fine. BTW, can you install an adblocker on Chrome, since Google is trying to disable all adblockers on all browsers and Chrome is developed by them? I guess not, so watching youtube on chrome would be a pain I guess (not sure because it doesn't work properly on my system as described above).
You just sound like a boomer who doesn't understand technology. Yes, you can use adblocker on chrome and I've never had any of my chrome settings reset in the last 10+ years I've used it so that sounds like a you problem not a chrome problem.
I don't understand the intention of this test. If I want to know a browsers hardness, I would be more interested knowing the driveby vulnerabilities detection rate, not for malicious exe download detection. Those exe files don't use the browser as an attack vector at all, but the OS itself, so I would be interestedin the OS or anti malware solution detection rate rather than the browser's smartscreen stuff.
Hi there, love the videos!
Have you done a test with Secure DNS? like Quad9 etc against malware links. Would be cool to see if Quad9, Cisco umbrella, and all those, how they work.
ah cool test!! thanks. I've found that I have been using MS Edge more the last 6 months, they've created a pretty nice browser. IMO
Idk if you've tried this but, if you want to test more links you could always wait until the connection to the site has completed then close the tab and move on potentially allowing you to cycle through unlimited links. Also you could have just used a CLI tool so it's not as system intensive (ik it looks less cool though). but all we care about is if we connected or not, so looking at what was loaded is kind of irrelevant.
Anyways cool vid, i've always like the "browser test series" of things
Yes, I have tried it, but it would just be too slow for the purposes of making a video as the multitude of links would be stuck waiting in the queue rather than downloading parallelly.
Now imagine how long it would take. You can blast your browser with 300 pages in less than 5 seconds, or wait for page to load which also can take up to 10 seconds. Even if it takes 1 second to fully load the page, it is 300 seconds = 7-8 minutes. But most sites take at least 3 seconds to load, so its literally half an hour to check 300 sites compared to 5 seconds.
@@pcsecuritychannel maybe make like 50 threads such that 50 links are open at the same time?
Now it would be interesting to see a better understanding of how Edge manages it's 100% detection, is it attempting some kind of sandbox with defender to do active testing before displaying a result or is it all MS database based.
MS database stored locally and online
Does edge just warn you about every exe file you download, no matter the popularity etc?
Personally, as a Firefox user, I've seen less false positives from it as opposed to Chrome (in both browsers some bad files ocassionaly do slip through the cracks)
good test thanks. The exe files are known on virustotal ? you turn off the windows defender ?
Very interesting test. I didn't expect Edge could perform better. I'd really like to see how Brave browser would also perform. Brave is gaining a lot of popularity lately because of it's headlining feature of Privacy and security in mind. Well I suggest we put it to the test.
I been using brave for along time it's truly amazing
Brave is pro-NFT, constantly gives crypto related popups, and steals profit from sites by redirecting URLs to ones they profit from. Just another phony privacy browser. I'll stick with Firefox and Tor.
@@TaxiCabCole lmao you do you I like my security when I'm on the internet
I've been using Brave for years on both my Linux laptop and Android. It's pretty good. As anything on the internet it's only so private. Firefox with the right settings and plugins is the only other viable option it seems. Brave is my preferred Android browser for now.
@@Moochi4 firefox and tor especially are literally way more secure than brave is the thing
Honestly, I love using Edge now. Since it's almost the same as Chrome. Plus, Chrome Extensions are also compatible with Edge, so I can't really see any downside. (At least for me).
I switched from chrome to Edge nearly 2 years ago and I haven't gotten a single complaint compared to chrome (also tried firefox but didn't feel right). Overall solid browser with decent ui customisation and significantly lower ram use than other browsers (altho I've heard opera gx is quite solid too). Great video!
Opera gx Is great but the clean UI in edge is timeless, after you get used to opera gx initially great features you start to feel... Weird using it, you start to notice all the details and how super hyper gamer it looks... I don't know how to explain
I am in the boat of count all keepable downloads as misses. Its not helping if everything you download casually has the same „warning“.
The one that always shouts „wolf!“ will be ignored fast!
what about brave?
brave is just google chrome
@@GigantTech EDGE Isn`t or?
@@GigantTech And Google Chrome is just Chromium. Your point being?
Most browsers nowadays apart from Firefox and Safari are based on Chromium, so the way they are configured does require testing. Brave is more privacy focused, which could mean that it does have as many security features enabled out of the box
Edge is a corporate approved browser. No surprise that it's really secure. Really surprised that Firefox block slightly less than Chrome, but Chrome is still a huge liability when it comes to privacy.
May be late, but Edge only won because it considers all .exe-files as dangerous and asks for confirmation before downloading them. You should do the test again but disable the security question before, in all 3 browsers.
@@IKER1000sYT if you say so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It doesn't do that though, in only flags malicious and questionable files
I'm impressed with Edge! 👏🏻
As for the dual warning from Edge and Chrome...
They could have easily made it all just "blocked", but they are trying to give the user some options in the process.
I see those alternate warnings as a full block.
Edge is getting better by the day imo.
i initially liked it because i was living in china and it was easy to work with it, unlike any google software that was blocked, and also i could work with the windows/android/edge/cloud microsoft provides for free. so i kinda get an all in one 2FA/password manager + cloud on all my devices, that alone eliminated so much hassle when it came to security management.
now i see this, edge better at blocking malwares, and the recent news about chatGPT being included in the next Edge builds.
i feel like not using Edge would be a mistake, it seems to be a superior browser in so many ways.
If you use windows, login to your microsoft account on a reinstall of windows, your edge browser on first start is already configured with your settings, and even your extensions you had installed. so you have almost nothing to manage or reinstall everytime. such a time saver.
@@jobslolo7387 Edge is defo getting better each day, the other day they announced a whole new ui update. Same with bing, bing chat and image AI is incredible
Edge got 100% because the "do you want to download this anyways?" ones were counted as a full block, as said in the video. The thing is, those popups appear for most, if not ALL .exe files you download from Edge, so good and bad ones get the same result, as long as the file extension is .exe
Leo
I got a Trojan malware from pen drive and bit defender blocked it.
it was a lnk file
I tried to select auto select what to do. but it said the file was modified so cannot be quarantined.
I later formatted the pendrive and it showed the malware was deleted
what do I do next.
ive experience a LOT of times the "this type of file can harm your computer" when downloading ANY popular minecraft mod. because they tend to come in .jar files. and even if those files have been downloaded like 100,000 times, Edge will still say that prompt. which i understand, but it is annoying to see that every single time i update the "sodium" mod lol
The problem is that .jar files don’t have an signature and are problematic to check for malware
Crazy how all malware can be avoided by just not opening suspicious exes.
@@IKER1000sYT wait how does that work.
@@IKER1000sYT How does that work, I've never heard of something being run with no prompting whatsoever.
What about Brave browser?
I've been using brave, it's same as chrome but with build-in adblock so brave wins easily.
Oh man, could you run the browser headless and save on performance requirements? Awesome video.
pro tip: Edge is basically Chrom(e)(ium) -(outdated usually) - with added MS spyware. And just because it blocks "more" program hashes doesn't make it more secure.
spyware? llmfaoooo
Spyware?? Are you ok with Google also "spying" on you, then? Adsense will also do this no matter which browser you use.
So then why do the security experts also say its more secure?
@@Wylie288 what 'experts', do yo have a citation for that?
Can anyone tell the conclusion which one is the safe and best ?
Hey there, amazing testing. Could you also do Brave? Thanks!
I would love to see this test on Chrome vs Edge on Linux . Maybe this could show how much Defender helps?
“edge says that it’s the safest browser, let’s test it against 300 links”
I'm Brave user just curious how this two perform.
Can i have the link to the Blacklisted sites? Just curious if i could test it on a vm if you could.
What happens in the browser is pretty interesting, especially when you do this analysis things start to come to light. I would have gone deeper though and reversed some binaries to understand why these tools blocks these particular flagged websites vs new malware. Seems like the approach for both black and white hats is deeply native