Bug found that crashes Chrome browser with 16 character link
22 Sep 2015
It has come to light that bug in Google Chrome discovered recently could crash the browser when a 16-character link in the address bar.
According to Redditor, 'j3rry' who discovered the hack, the 'cheat code' is: http://a/%%30%30
The bug also affected the latest versions of Opera, while it caused Firefox to load deformed urls.
Apple users are not likely not be affected as it did not seem to affect Chrome on Macs or even on Android smartphones.
According to experts, the bug is caused due to incorrect handling of the parameters in the characters, with both %30 decoded to 0, and %00 decoded to null, which then crashed Chrome.
The bug had been reported to Google and the company is expected to release a patch to fix it.
If your computer gets infected with malware despite your best to avoid dubious sites, Google has revealed one reason. (See: Shocking: Google says 5% of users have ad injection malware).