How do IE, FF, and Chrome compare in security?

Question

I'm trying to determine which of the three main browsers (Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer) are the most secure and safe. Right now, in our system, Firefox 10 and IE 8 are cleared as 'good-to-use', but Chrome isn't.

Is Chrome really less secure than Firefox and IE, or are the IT folks are slow at updating (Firefox 12 and IE 9 and 10 preview are out right now)?

Answer 1

Here is why I think such resource can't exist:

1. Most studies I've seen so far appear to have an agenda, being it to sing the praise of commercial software in form of the IE, or tell us why open source is the way to go. Both choose their metrics in a biased way to build their arguments.
2. Any attempt to create a metric regarding browser security can only rely on past events, not on the current or future state of a given piece of software, because no one knows what bugs might lurk in the depths of the code.
3. While it might be theoretical possible to create a fair system of evaluating past performances security wise of the different vendors (how many important/critical bugs, impact, turnaround time, communication style etc.), this doesn't really matter because this will tell you nothing about the critical bug that could be found tomorrow in the winners product.
4. Because of this, any attempt to create such a study in an academic context is likely to be done by a lame grad student unwilling or unable to do real and useful work for his thesis or term paper.