I don’t know if you’ve seen, but Google have recently been making a big deal about a new update to their Chrome web browser.
It’s not an update designed to change how it works or make it work differently… it’s to fix a bug that could let hackers attack your PC.
In fact often when a software company spots a bug in a program they make, they spot it (or someone working for them does) before any bad guys actually know about it, so it gets fixed before it’s ever used by a hacker.
But this time it’s known that this bug has been used to hack some computers – so it’s definitely a good idea to check yours.
The good news is that it only affects Google Chrome – if you use Microsoft Edge or Firefox, you’re fine (this time – though I wouldn’t take that to mean that they’re generally any safer than Chrome – it just happened to be Chrome this time).
The other good news is that as far as I can tell by what Google have announced so far, this only affects desktop computers, not tablets or phones.
The other other good news is that Chrome will probably have already updated itself to fix the bug. Best to check, though.
To check, start up Chrome on your PC, click or tap on the little three dot menu near the top right and then point the mouse at “help” and click on “About Google Chrome”.
It’ll tell you if it’s up to date and if it isn’t, give you the option to update it now.
If it says it’s up to date, then you can breathe a sigh of relief and go back to whatever you were doing. If it says it isn’t up to date, then click to update it, then breathe a sigh of relief and go back to whatever you were doing.
It’s something worth understanding, even if you don’t use Chrome, that this is why most updates to Windows or Android or whatever happen – it’s not just about changing how it works (though they do do that). It’s about fixing bugs and making it harder to hack into your device.
That’s why I always recommend you to allow your device to do updates – even if it can be annoying sometimes. And if you’re frustrated having to wait for an update to happen, at least it’s less frustrating than having to deal with your PC being hacked!