Netcraft: Will Firefox Repeat Netscape’s Mistakes?

“As a recent column noted, the spate of security problems that
have plagued Internet Explorer could well mark a turning point in
the fortune of one of its main rivals, Mozilla Firefox. But there
is another side to this story, for it is important to note that
many of Microsoft’s woes in this area are self-inflicted, a result
of its dogged determination to integrate the Web browser with its
operating system.

“This formed the heart of its defence in the US anti-trust
trial, where it justified the bundling of a Web browser with
Windows on the grounds that the two were inextricably mixed. While
that was hardly the case at the beginning–Windows 95 originally
came without a Web browser, which was available separately as the
Internet Jumpstart Kit in the Windows Plus! Pack–Microsoft took
great pains to make it so afterwards. But a consequence of this is
that flaws in the browser are so deeply plumbed into the operating
system that they give almost unlimited power to anyone able to
exploit them…”

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