Chrome and Firefox are both about to turn 100, or at least their version numbers are, and that could spell trouble for some websites that didn’t prepare for such a high number.
It’s not exactly the fault of the two browsers getting older that will cause trouble. The length of the version number is at issue, several developers explain in a Mozilla blog and a largely identical Chrome blog. When users visit websites, their browser sends a User-Agent string that includes the version number for the site to read and identify the browser. But, there hasn’t been a standard specification for how browsers present and and sites read that version number, so the switch from a two-digit to a three-digit number will result in errors on some websites.
“When browsers first reached version 10 a little over 12 years ago, many issues were discovered with User-Agent parsing libraries as the major version number went from one digit to two,” the two blogs note. While some websites took that opportunity to plan ahead for the eventuality of three-digit version numbers, issues have still cropped up on Chrome and Firefox.
These updates to Version 100 aren’t expected to have as big an impact as the updates to Version 10 or Y2K, but the developers for Chrome and Firefox are trying to detect issues and broken websites ahead of the launch.
Chrome’s public release is set to reach version number 100 on March 29, and Firefox is scheduled to follow it on May 3. Until then, developers are working on mitigation strategies. This may involve presenting the actual version number in a different way and letting sites think the browsers are still running Version 99. Users can also help identify problems and report them.
