Like Y2K before it, now popular web browsers might be in danger of experiencing issues with various websites following their 100th iteration. Google's Chrome, Microsoft's Edge, and Mozilla's Firefox are the main culprits, as the former is currently on version 98 while the latter two are still on 97.
Developers at all three tech giants are already building out ways to bypass said issues, denoting a full list of the web bugs via GitHub. With only a few weeks remaining before said browsers perform their necessary updates come March, time is of the essence. From Yahoo and HBO Go to T-Mobile and even Bethesda, certain sites will see inconsistencies and may not be identified properly by the web browser in question.
The problem itself comes mainly from, much akin to Y2K, the very three-digit formula of the forthcoming version 100 updates. A website's server must first process a User-Agent to ensure the site knows what browser a user is on before delivering the user to its auspices. The User-Agent merely allows the site to be displayed correctly depending on the specific browser in question.
Certain websites, however, will not have special privileges in place to allow them read-ready triple-digit user-agent strings. This means that the site's parsing libraries literally aren't prepared for coded versions beyond three digits due to hard-coded assumptions that aren't properly attuned. Similar concerns arose amid Y2K, wherein fears that computers would malfunction following the internal clocks' dates changing from 1999 to 2000.
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Despite its web browser's slow flatlining, Mozilla is hard at work devising ways to keep the User-Agent issue and other assorted problems at bay. The company posted a hefty blog post detailing all of the necessary information and backroom procedures that are being taken to ensure everything runs as smoothly as possible upon version 100's drop for Firefox.
In the meantime, as issues come into play beyond the update, Mozilla says it has users covered: "If the breakage is widespread and individual site interventions become unmanageable, Mozilla can freeze Firefox's major version at 99 and then test other options."
Google is likewise taking steps to amend the concerns before they can happen, citing it will also freeze Chrome version update to 99 like Firefox if the hard-coded assumptions in the parsing libraries can't keep up to date.
Microsoft has yet to address any of these arising procedures for Edge, but the version 100 release schedule has been remained unchanged and planned for the week of March 8. If hotfixes can't amend the problems fast enough, it will most likely have a similar backup plan to flag the version at 99.
This isn't the first of its kind in terms of rising digits in web browser version updates causing widespread concerns, as the leap from single to double digits also felt similar strides. Recounting on this past, Mozilla relays in its blog post that "hitting the three-digit milestone is expected to cause fewer problems" than the single-to-double digit jump long ago.
Be on the lookout for any and all news concerning these forthcoming web browser updates, as your favorite site might be affected, and you may have to try a different browser altogether.
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