Expert: Doug Woodall - 7/3/2007

Question
Has anyone designed a browser for the specific purpose of doing harm to your computer or for other malicious motives?  Like if a criminal designed his own browser, marketed as a great alternative, but underneath the browser was really a bad scheme.

Here is the reason: I am interested in checking out lesser known browsers because I am interested in finding communities of people I wouldn't normally find through just using one browser or "friends" websites. For example I found a browser called Opera and learned it has its own community where you can do blogs, pictures, just like myspace or dozens of other friend sites.

I found an alphabetized list on http://webtips.dan.info/brand-x/a-g.html

I was about to check out different ones, but that's when I said to myself, before I go and try different ones, maybe I should ask someone if they know of some that really stand out as a "don't even go near it".  

Thanks  

Answer
Hi Nik,
Browsers like Opera and Firefox, which I use, are open source browsers.
Thats why you see the Forums and such, for people to discuss changes and such.
The site for where ever you dnload has the possibility always for being comprimised. You just have to be careful.
Make sure by doing a Browser review in Google or whatever search engine you use.
There are alot of reliable sites that will give you info. Like MajorGeeks.com or Comsumer Research.com

Hope this helps.
Let me know if I can be of more help.