A new Web page that tests browser security has crowned Internet Explorer 9 the most secure among the five major players. The only catch is that the page itself comes from Microsoft. Dubbed "Your Browser Matters," the new page checks a browser to determine how well it fares against phishing attacks and other types of socially engineered malware. The page then assigns the browser a score based on a scale of 0 to 4
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Looking at the major browsers, Internet Explorer 9 received a perfect 4 out 4, while IE8 earned a 3. The latest versions of Firefox (7.0) and Google Chrome (14) took home scores of 2 and 2.5, respectively. And apparently Safari and Opera don't even merit a grade since the page simply said it couldn't give a score to either of those browsers.
The page also serves as a promo for Internet Explorer by touting Microsoft's SmartScreen technology, a feature introduced in IE8 that analyzes each URL to determine if it's safe or secure. Next to the scores for each browser is a running total telling you how many attacks would've been blocked had you only been running a browser equipped with SmartScreen.