Google Chrome is more secure web browser than its rivals Firefox and Internet Explorer, says a new study by security vendor Accuvant Labs. The research was funded by Google, says that the security provided by chrome browser would probably because of sandboxing and plug-in security it provides.

Accuvant released Browser Security Comparison: A Quantitative Approach, an extensive security evaluation of the three most widely used web browsers – Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Recently Google's chrome officially surpass Firefox to assume the No. 2 position in market share last week.

Whereas many browser security comparisons focus on metrics such as vulnerability report counts and URL blacklists, Accuvant put its emphasis instead on anti-exploitation techniques.

On five key characteristics, for example–vulnerability patching, safe browsing API, sandboxing, JIT hardening, and plug-in architecture–Chrome offered a "first-rate implementation," Accuvant found.

Internet Explorer came in second due to deficiencies in its implementation of sandboxing and JIT hardening, while Firefox came in last of the three for failing to implement those two key features altogether.

Chrome was also the most frequently updated of the three browsers, Accuvant found, and it patched vulnerabilities most quickly, with an average patch time of just 53 days compared with Firefox's 158 and Internet Explorer's 214.

Accuvant analyzed the three browsers–which together account for more than 93 percent of the market, it says–while running in a Windows 7 environment.

The results of the study largely echo those from this year's Pwn2Own hack event, from which Chrome emerged unscathed.