This Chrome browser version may bring down thousands of websites, here’s why – Times of India

Google Chrome browser has been around for almost 13 year now and it is inching towards its 100th major update. Now, as per a report by 9to5Google, few websites may no longer work on the Chrome browser’s 100th version which is rumoured to be available next year. According to Chromium Bug Tracker, websites that are primarily developed using the web designing kit called Duda. The websites that are developed using Duda use the same bit of code to identify what version of Chrome browser you are using.
Why few websites may stop working on Chrome 100
Websites use ‘User Agent string’ to identify what version of a browser you are using. This string is text that a browser attaches with every web connection that it makes. Once you break down the User Agent string, you can easily spot the version of the browser that you are using.
As the User Agent string is just text, developers have to find a way to interpret the code to find the browser info. When it comes to Duda, the website developer can only read the first two digits from the User Agent string. This means websites developed on Duda will read the Chrome 100 version as version 10.
The problem with this is that Duda automatically blocks versions of Chrome below version 40. Chrome version 40 was released in 2015. As the Chrome 100 will be read as Chrome 10, therefore Duda website will automatically be blocked.
As per the report, Duda is not the only web toolkit with this issue. A few other major website developing kits also have this issue. The report further mentions that Google has acknowledged this issue and is working to fix the issue. The tech giant has even prepared a backup plan to address this issue. It has added a new flag to Chrome that can lock the major version in the User-Agent string to 99, and force the major version number to the minor version position.