NSS Labs has released its latest Web Browser Security Comparative Test Reports against Socially-Engineered Malware for the third quarter of 2011. The report examines the ability of the top five web browsers to protect users from websites that look harmless but actually are designed to trick visitors into downloading and installing malware.

According to a recent study by AVG, users are four times more likely to be tricked into downloading malware than be compromised by a vulnerability.

The report found that Windows Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) caught an exceptional 99.2% of live threats (96% with the SmartScreen URL reputation and an additional 3.2% with Application Reputation). Google Chrome 12 caught 13.2% of the live threats, four times more that it managed during the Q3 2010 global test. Apple Safari 5 and Firefox both caught 7.6% of the live threats. Opera 11 caught the lowest number of threats, just 6.1%.

The full report can be downloaded from the NSS Lab’s website (download PDF) and unlike previous reports this latest report was not paid for by Microsoft.