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Watch out for this new URL that will crash your iPhone and Mac Safari if you click it

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Watch out for a new prank circling Twitter and other social media today. Visiting CrashSafari.com on an iPhone, iPad or Mac will cause Safari app to crash … and potentially cause your device to restart. The bug is otherwise harmless, but be warned it will likely cause you to lose your open tabs.

To try this out click here to visit the page and watch for the beachball. The current troll is to link to CrashSafari.com on Twitter using a URL shortener, so people are tricked into visiting the site without being able to see the name.

iphone-fire

On the Mac, Safari will freeze (‘Application Not Responding’). You may need to restart your machine to get your browser working again. On some iPhones and iPads, the glitch may cause your iOS device to reboot. So how does this prank work?

The code of the CrashSafari site is very simple. The page includes a header title (which you’ll never actually see because the browser crashes) and a small piece of JavaScript. The JavaScript calls the HTML5 History API thousands of times in a loop, essentially causing Safari to freeze.

Screen Shot 2016-01-25 at 15.15.08

The History API is what allows modern websites to change the URL of the page without causing a refresh: scroll 9to5Mac’s homepage and you’ll see the text in the URL bar change. The person behind this site has found that you can cause a crash by abusing the API and calling it thousands of times in quick succession.

You can activate it by browsing to the URL directly as well as clicking on links in apps, like tapping on a link shared over Facebook and Twitter. Depending on how the website is opened, it will either crash the current app, the Safari browser, or the whole of system.

The ‘hack’ has been seen to work on the latest versions of Apple’s operating systems, iOS 9.2.1 and OS X 10.11.3, as well as some of the beta seeds. Wihle we would expect Apple to fix the problem in a future update, there is no immediate rush as the site does not compromise the system at all and poses no practical security risk. Just a major inconvenience if you’re forced to reboot.

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Comments

  1. checker92 - 8 years ago

    Just tried it with Google Chrome under Windows 10. It works there as well.

  2. Howie Isaacks - 8 years ago

    So is 9to5Mac posting this because they want to warn us about this site, or do they think this is just the coolest thing ever and they want us all to try it out? Either way, it’s very irresponsible to post this.

    • Greg Barbosa - 8 years ago

      We posted this as a warning and as an educational effort so that others may understand why it’s occurring, and why they shouldn’t click it. It’s not irresponsible to teach someone how/why their system can break. Hopefully with all the media outlets discussing this, the various browser developers can work together to find their own appropriate resolutions.

      • Howie Isaacks - 8 years ago

        What you should have done was report the website to the host, and the registrar rather than call attention to it.

    • The same exploit could just be posted at another URL. Exposing the exploit and its methods is what will lead to its resolution. This needs to be solved by Apple and maybe even addressed by HTML5’s makers. Sweeping the dirt under the rug by complaining to some web host or registrar doesn’t address the big picture here.

  3. Kieran Innalls - 8 years ago

    Same thing happens on Windows 10 with Firefox, although you can simply end the process to get around it.

  4. tmrjij718 - 8 years ago

    Sending this link to EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Safari on iOS 9.3 Beta just crashes for me. No full reboot happened with my seed apparently.

    • Howie Isaacks - 8 years ago

      Why would you want to do a dumbass thing like that? Do you like helping to perpetuate malicious websites? What an asshole.

      • tmrjij718 - 8 years ago

        Revenge for the Power Effective bug we got in a group message. #EvilLaugh

  5. Firefox traps the unresponsive Jscript and allows you to kill it. Chrome will hang the loading tab, but the browser framework is unaffected and you can simply close the tab.

    Seems easy enough for Apple to fix, hopefully they go on step further and put additional limits on the use of that API.

  6. tinman8443 - 8 years ago

    Just crashes the springboard not the entire device.

  7. Chrome on Windows just crashes, can’t close the tab or anything.

  8. Avieshek (@avieshek) - 8 years ago

    Google Chrome became unresponsive even on Android, only way out, kill the App

  9. You don’t have to Restart machine…you can just use Force Quit feature to kill Safari

    • cjt3007 - 8 years ago

      But… if you’re Kylo Ren then you use Force Emo and smash the whole damn machine XD

  10. DanG (@Ingila_Bear) - 8 years ago

    Yup, it crashed Google Chrome under Win 10 as well.

  11. tohaklim - 8 years ago

    Slowed down Tweetbot on i5/ios6, and crashed the wifi service, but that’s probably due to the minuscule amount of ram I have. ipad pro should be fine

  12. Wouter van Herwerden - 8 years ago

    … and they are using Google Analytics to monitor the visitors!!!

  13. Robert Biskup - 8 years ago

    WOW ,clean reboot after clicking it. IOS 9.2.1
    IPad Air2

  14. iali87 - 8 years ago

    I am having a mac freeze with safari everyday. My macbook is the latest model with upgraded cpu and ssd. I can’t believe this happening on a $3800 device. I am not joking when I say that this happen everyday. I am not sure if this is a software issue or what!

  15. Jason Brown - 8 years ago

    This also causes Google Chrome to crash from windows 10

  16. teeayeand - 8 years ago

    While we all wait for new update from Apple, there is a tweak that can help prevent this from happening http://www.cydiageeks.com/stop-crashing-safari-bug-on-iphone.html

  17. I tested this on IE 11 on Windows 8.1 …it freezes on the first 2 seconds and it works perfectly fine

  18. Just tried it with Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10 (64-bit) and it doesn’t work
    ╱╱┏╮
    ╱╱┃┃
    ▉━╯┗━╮
    ▉┈┈┈┈┃
    ▉╮┈┈┈┃
    ╱╰━━━╯

  19. not just safari but chrome too :/

  20. It works Firefox latest version on Windows 8.1. It was memory over load fault. Proof here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gh0diennvdlehcz/ada.png?dl=0

  21. Moon Man - 8 years ago

    Sent this to everyone I know, especially iPhone users, in the form of a tiny url. Some people are so stupid.

  22. johnniedehuff - 8 years ago

    works on google chrome on mac as well, except it doesn’t show as not responding, it just doesn’t let you close the tab or chrome itself

  23. eldragoinformico - 8 years ago

    the number of times API can be requested a minute should be limited.
    also aplications (in all OSes) should have a max reasuorce drain.
    tried the website in chrome 50.0.2661.102 on ubuntu 16.04 LTS (codename : Xenial Xerus) and had to restarted my computer.

  24. iOS 10 Download - 8 years ago

    Ah. I crashed couple of my friends devices with this URL :D

  25. it doesn’t work i clicked it and kept it open forever nothing happened

  26. Kenneth Hollinger - 7 years ago

    My iPhone safari just crashed and draft popped up giving a number to call and didn’t seem legit who do I talk to to fix my safari

Author

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.