Internet Explorer avoids memory leak flaw affecting Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

Internet Explorer 9

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser has escaped a huge memory leak flaw affecting rival browsers.

The flaw was posted to the Chromium issue tracker earlier this month. Internet Explorer 7, 8 and 9 are not affecting by the issue according to initial developer testing. The Next Web reports that Chrome is affected, alongside Firefox and Safari. Opera’s browser has not been tested.

The memory leak occurs when an image result contains a “Cache-control:no-store” attribute as it loads. Browsers are supposed to load the images and then free the memory up post load. The bug means memory is never freed and constantly in use by the system. The developer that discovered the flaw has created a test page to demonstrate the memory leak in action. You can test the memory leak in your favorite browser here.

In related news, Microsoft recently revealed that Internet Explorer 8 and 9 block up to 5 million daily malware attacks. Microsoft’s new Application Reputation warnings in Internet Explorer 9 have blocked more than 20 million additional infections per month according to the software giant.