Web link crashes Safari on your iPhone or Mac

You've probably run into websites (or buggy browsers) that have inadvertently bogged down your devices, but there's one lurking out there that causes very intentional grief. If you visit crashsafari.com (we're not going to link it, for obvious reasons), the site will generate an ever-larger character string that creates a lot of problems. As the name implies, it'll reliably crash Apple's Safari browser on Macs -- and on iOS devices, you'll probably need to reboot. The code also appears to affect Chrome on Android and PCs, although not to such a severe and predictable degree.

There doesn't appear to be any malware lurking behind the code, and you should be fine once you restart your browser or device. However, there are concerns that someone could use the crash to compromise your security (some attacks rely on crashes to open vulnerabilities)... or at least, use a URL shortener to hide the link and pull a prank. We've reached out to Apple for its take on the situation, and we'll let you know if it has a response. In the meantime, you'll probably want to avoid visiting any obscured links from people you don't trust.