From time to time, the news shows hacked websites and many users that got into security problems. These incidents would be reduced greatly if users were more conscious using more secure software in their PC, instead of using pre-installed software. Software like the new Mozila Firefox browser and some additional security programs such as: Antivirus, antispyware and a good personal firewall are necessary to protect all computers from the security threats of the Internet.



Why the Internet is so insecure?

The main reason why the Internet is not as safe as it should be is based on how computer software works and how operating systems (the software that interact with the underlying hardware) were designed. It is so difficult to build fail-proof software that it is not unheard to find unexpected errors in software used for years without problems and this is the reason why the people in charge of the design of the PC industry programmed operating systems to load the software necessary each time when the PC is turned on. Since all software works in volatile memory, it only takes some other software to load and take control of your system to start seeing problems.

The Internet was not designed with security in mind

The designers of the Internet were much more interested in adding features than providing a solid security foundation. That is the reason why Internet software don't have minimal security and now we have to deal with this using things like: firewall software (this stop malicious traffic to get inside your PC) antivirus software (this stop malicious programs to cause harm in your PC) antispam software (this stop junk messages to get in your inbox), some antispyware features included in the Mozila software (this warns you about phishing sites).

Software contributes to the overall problem

Software built in a rush tend to have a lot of errors, such as the case of Internet Explorer, which was designed in a hurry to take Netscape (this was years before Mozila) out of the market by year 1,994, when Netscape was the most popular browser. With so much hurry in the design of the software, you need to be lucky if some hacker could not find a way to take advantage of some of them to take control of your PC. Microsoft updates could help, but the design of the software is so bad that errors are very difficult to deal with.

Mozila took more time to make a careful design

Firefox is the son of many other browser projects such as Netscape with many years of experience to adapt and turn itself into a very powerful browser with a lot of safety features. This browser also has many innovative things such as the tabbed browsing, making navigation through many websites easier because it is not necessary to open many different windows. The Firefox browser comes with a very exciting feature, which you can use to extend the functionality of the browser using software from third parties known as plug-ins.