Nov 26, 2010 16:49 GMT  ·  By

Internet Explorer 9 features additional security mitigations designed to provide end users with enhanced protection in comparison to its predecessors, as Microsoft already indicated, and as Avira confirmed recently. Security is after all one of the aspects of IE’s evolution, and the fact is that new security features have been added to Internet Explorer as the browser moved from one version to another.

Internet Explorer 9 continues to feature mitigations built into older versions of IE, including a phishing filter, anti-XSS protection and the InPrivate browsing mode.

In addition, the Redmond company now focused on increasing the protection that end users enjoy when downloading content from the web.

The new Download Manager built into IE9 is set up to check for malware infections, to verify digital signatures, etc. But it does come with a twist, as it is capable of dividing suspicious and potentially malicious files from legitimate downloads.

“Summarizing the changes in IE9 which drive Microsoft to claim it is the most secure browser from the Redmond company, the most important new security feature is the Download Manager with SmartScreen filter integration,” revealed Sorin Mustaca, Avira Data Security Expert.

“SmartScreen is a URL blacklist providing malware and phishing protection. Starting with this version, Microsoft introduced SmartScreen download reputation.

“SmartScreen download reputation is a browser feature that uses reputation data to remove unnecessary warnings for well-known files, and shows more severe warnings when the download has a higher risk of being malicious.

“This reduces the problem of having the users ignoring or deactivating these warnings if they appear too often.”

Of course, users can continue to count on IE9 to integrate closely with User Account Control in Windows 7 and Windows Vista SP2.

This means that the browser will run with limited privileges, making it extremely hard for attackers to gain access to key areas of the operating system and change them.

“Something closely related to security is the approach to separate the core from the 3rd party functionalities like plugins and addons. IE9 is naming this “Hang recovery” and “Automatic crash recovery”,” Mustaca added.

“There is also another interesting feature called “Add-on Performance Advisor” which should audit all add-ons and allow the user to close those which are slowing down the browser.

“There is also hope for the enterprise users because IE9 now has over 1500 Group Policy settings built in, allowing IT professionals to tweak the browser in many ways.”

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Beta is available for download here.

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview 7 (PP7) is available for download here.