With each new release there is the potential for new exploits and make no mistake, the bad guys are paying attention. Once a security hole in a particular version is found ALL the bad guys will know about it and they WILL try to take advantage of it. Major browsers update about once a month but on occasion even sooner if a serious exploit is found. Keeping your browser up to date means any new exploits will be addressed ASAP. Whether it is a chink in the browser's armor or a new way malicious sites can exploit visitors keeping your browser up to date reduces this risk considerably.

     Most browser release notes usually do not specifically detail the exploits addressed. It would be akin to telling a pyromaniac where you keep your matches and gasoline. Sometimes they do mention details but often not. This does not mean exploits were not addressed.

     "Why do some sites reject my browser version?" This answer could be for several reasons. Where the Guitar Gallery is concerned this is to prevent site scraping or other unwanted or even malicious traffic. About 70% or often more of the traffic that hits the Guitar Gallery falls into this category. This unwanted traffic can spike resource usage such as CPU or PHP processing and has even caused complete outages a number of times. Most scrapers and bots report an older browser version, sometimes 4 versions or so back, others VERY old (e.g. Chrome/69). I understand sometimes updating your browser gets put on the back burner but this is not a good practice.

     The Guitar Gallery rejects any browser version more than two versions back or around two months old. This is more than enough time to update a browser. I realize there are some browsers out there built on either Chrome or Firefox offering appealing features or benefits but one thing you want to keep in mind there is do they keep their core up to date (meaning the Chrome or Firefox they are based on)?

     Even if it is the latest and greatest version of SuperDuperBrowser does NOT mean its core is up to date. If it is several versions behind the latest core release they are based on you are taking an unnecessary risk regardless of the benefits or features. Nifty emojis or a fancy interface does not trump security risks. Slimjet is a perfect example. It may be fast and have some swell features but its core is NEVER anywhere near up to date. I abandoned it long ago for this very reason. I use Brave myself which does keep its core up to date and also offers quite a few privacy features.

     One reason the Guitar Gallery allows for two versions back is some corporate IT departments manage the browser versions internally and can sometimes lag behind the latest release by a version for a short period. However, most IT department are VERY security oriented and nearly all of the time keep browser versions up to date. Yes, two versions back does allow some unwanted traffic through but it is minimal and allows visitors a little wiggle room.

     If you have an "Enterprise" version of say Chrome or Firefox your browser may not keep itself up to date as enterprise versions are meant specifically for that, enterprises whose IT team keeps them up to date internally. If you have installed an enterprise version and it does not keep itself up to date you will have to do this manually.

     Another thing to consider that has nothing to do with scraper prevention is DRM or Digital Rights Management. If you stream ANYTHING your streaming service IS checking your browser version and more importantly the DRM plugin version that is part of the core. DRM is constantly evolving to combat piracy and updated often. If your browser is too far out of date it may mean you can only stream in standard definition (480p) or you may be greeted with a "Browser version not supported" message and completely disable streaming. I don't know about you but if I rent a movie on Amazon it surely means I want to watch it in HD.