The kings of internet browsers are about to hit version 100. An odd number to do all at once, but there's a good reason, and a pretty bad one in the short term, too. Chrome, Firefox and Edge are about to break most of the websites as we know them, although everything is going in a good way.
The next browser update changes many things about how we see and interact with the web, and there will be no choice but to catch up. Or at least to do it for the problem be the least for users.
The reason? The change to version 100 in the most important browsers and scheduled for the next few weeks, could generate errors or compatibility problems in some websites that are not prepared to read user agent strings from three digits.
However, there is not much to fear. The three main companies behind the big browsers, Google, Mozilla and Microsoft, are already working to get ahead of any major issues.
A version change in Chrome, Edge and Firefox that will affect the entire web
There is already an updated list of problems that have been found with early versions of new browsers. At the moment it is quite small, but in reality it is limited to a small sample of what the web is. There are some renowned websites affected such as those of HBO, Bethesda and Yahoo, but as they are public versions, the list can increase exponentially.
In fact, this is not the first time it has happened. A few years ago when browsers first hit version 10 (yes, it's been a long time since then), there were reports of many problems with the User-Agent parsing libraries, as the major version number went from one digit to two. Now the same thing happens, only that the browsers will go from two digits to three.
All in all, if your favorite websites have done their homework for its launch, scheduled for April for Edge and Chrome and for May for Mozilla, there shouldn't be any problems. Of course, many of your favorite sites may be broken directly with the arrival of the new versions, and you may have limitations when accessing the content.
In fact, developers can already enable a special tag in current versions of Chrome, Edge, and Firefox for browsers to test for compatibility.
