*The global Big Tech urges users whose version is below that number to make it a point to check at least once a day to see if there is an upgrade

Isola Moses | 绿帽献妻

Global technology giant Google has put two billion Chrome users on high alert, that its browser has suffered 鈥渮ero-day鈥� exploits that 鈥渆xist in the wild鈥� and affect Apple, Linux, and Windows systems.

绿帽献妻 learnt this is the ninth such attack so far this year.

Users of the company鈥檚 products and services are thus required to regularly check for updates to see if a patch is available.

In order to buy itself some extra time so users can upgrade to a safer version of Chrome, Google鈥檚 Srinivas Sista said the company is limiting access to bug details and links 鈥渦ntil a majority of users are updated with a fix,鈥� agency report said.

What Chrome users need to do now

To get ahead of the situation for the short term, Google has released a critical update. Gordon Kelly, a Consumer Tech specialist at Forbes, says the company tends to roll out updates in a staggered fashion, so not everyone will get the notice at the same time.

Therefore, to check if you are protected, you can take the following steps:

Click on the vertical three-dot icon in the upper right-hand part of your Chrome browser.

Then, go to Settings > Help > About Google Chrome.

If your Chrome version is 94.0.4606.71 or higher, then consider yourself safe. If your version is below that number, make it a point to check at least once a day to see if there鈥檚 an upgrade.

If the update is not yet available for your browser, check regularly for the new version.

Are there safer browsers than Chrome?

One of the reasons many people use Chrome is because the integration between Google Docs, YouTube, Google Drive, Google Calendar, G-Mail, their Android devices, etc. makes things easier.

But cybersecurity watcher Zak Doffman says Google鈥檚 latest issue should give users some serious pause.

Following the announcement of the latest Chrome issue, Doffman wrote: 鈥淚f you鈥檙e one of those users, this nasty new surprise just gave you a reason to quit.鈥�

Do consumers have other decent choices? Doffman says yes. There鈥檚 Apple鈥檚 Safari, DuckDuckGo, Mozilla Firefox, and a fairly new browser called Brave.

Each of those browsers tries to upset Google鈥檚 apple cart by placing an extra emphasis on privacy.

In Brave鈥檚 case, it automatically blocks both ads and website trackers as part of its default settings.

Even though Google announced it was phasing out third-party tracking cookies in its Chrome browser earlier this year, Doffman is still championing a different browser.

鈥淲hile it鈥檚 Firefox, DuckDuckGo and Brave that most vocally push the browser privacy agenda, it鈥檚 really Safari that has done the best job of exposing Chrome鈥檚 avaricious data harvesting machine at scale,鈥� the expert wrote.

According to him, even though much of Apple鈥檚 recent press has been about its new iPhones, the company鈥檚 recent Safari update is a 鈥済enuine game changer鈥� for privacy and security because of the addition of a new privacy weapon called Private Relay.

鈥淧ut simply, this breaks the identity chain between you, the Web sites you visit and the ISP through which you access the internet,鈥� he further explained.