Google Chrome Release Update; How Safe Is Your Browser?

Google has released an update to its Chrome browser today, taking it to version 1.0.154.64.

The update fixes two major security weaknesses within Chrome, one of which would allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the logged on user. That's about as bad as it gets so, yes, this is a "critical" update.

Given that Firefox also released a major update recently that fixed 12 vulnerabilities, this begs the question, "How safe is your browser?"

There is a new report on how different browsers perform security updates. This might have more of an impact on your overall security than you might think.

Google Chrome, for example, looks for an update every five hours. It will also upgrade silently to the newest version without the need to restart the browser. Additionally, you cannot disable this feature, even if you want to (which you shouldn't)

So here is how today's browsers stack up in terms of the percentage of users that have the most recent and most secure updates installed:

Google Chrome: 97 percent

Mozilla Firefox: 85 percent

Safari: 53 percent

Opera: 24 percent

Personally, I love how fast Chrome is when it comes to surfing the web and loading pages. However, most of my plug-ins and add-ons won't work with Chrome. For now, I'm sticking with Firefox.