Who would have thought IE9 would be the safest browser?

Not me, at least based on the last 10 years of history with using the browser.  According to the security firm, NSS they tested the major browsers on their ability to detect and avoid malware.  NSS Labs identified this type of malware as "a Web page link that directly leads to a download that delivers a malicious payload whose content type would lead to execution, or more generally a website known to host malware links."

NSS Labs also tested how long it took each browser to block malicious URLs after they appeared on the Internet. In this category, IE9 again won, catching 99 percent of new URLs in the first hour they were added to the pile of corrupt websites. Safari fared the worst, catching 6.4 percent of the bad sites within the first hour.  The issue is not just that it caught the malware, but it caught it at a rate substantially higher than any other browser.  Just a few years ago, Internet Explorer was labeled as the worst Internet browser in the world, and now... a 180 degree turn.  Read the article here.