Serious warning issued for millions of Edge, Firefox and Chrome users
Google, Microsoft and Mozilla have warned Chrome, Edge and Firefox users that a unified update is coming to all three browsers soon, which could bring down some of the world’s biggest websites.
Firefox, Chrome and Edge will soon break a number of top websites
Gordon Kelly
In a movement that echoes the Year 2000 bug, Chrome. Edge and Firefox will soon be moving to version number “100”, which will cause some of the biggest websites to fail because they cannot process visits from browsers with three-digit version numbers. Some of the sites currently affected include Bethesda, T-Mobile, HBO Go, and Yahoo!
Why are three-digit browser versions so hard to deal with? It boils down to outdated code.
The problem
Most websites check your browser version number when you visit for security reasons. If you are using an old unsupported browser (in Chrome the common threshold is 40) you will not be allowed to open the site lest it has been compromised by hackers. The problem is that the outdated code on these sites only checks the first two digits. So Chrome, Edge and Firefox 100 will be read as “10” and blocked.
So why are all three browsers upgrading to version 100 at the same time? In short: pressure web developers to upgrade. Most developers then updated, but there are some telling exceptions, such as those listed above, and you can read more at this tracker.
And time is running out. The stable versions of Chrome and Edge (both of which run Chromium) are 98 while Firefox is on 97. For context, Chrome was running version 95 in October.
So what can you do?
Emergency countermeasures have been announced for Chrome and Firefox. Depending on how many websites fail to launch (and no one will really know until launch), Google’s backup plan is to freeze Chrome’s version number to 99 in its ID code, while Mozilla will try a combination of freezing the version number and issuing patches for individuals. sites. Microsoft has yet to comment.
All of this means that the roughly four billion users of Chrome, Edge and Firefox could have a bumpy ride over the next few months.
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