Beware: The latest iPhone prank can completely crash your phone

There are two types of pranks: Pranks that make everyone laugh, and pranks that crash your iPhone when you innocently click on a link in search of a funny meme. Guess which one this is? You got it. A “joke” is making its way around the Internet using the link CrashSafari.com, which does pretty much exactly what it says. However, it can go as far as to crash your whole device as well.

Now, this obviously isn’t the end of the world. The link doesn’t cause any real damage, and if Safari crashes your phone, you can simply turn your phone back on, which is fine if you’re hanging out on your couch, but more annoying if you’re, say, out and about, trying to look up directions. By using JavaScript to repeatedly call the HTML5 History API, the link overloads your phone until Safari crashes, sometimes confusing your phone so much that it just gives up and restarts entirely.

Whoever created this prank was feeling pretty sneaky, because they’ve made it somewhat impossible to look out for. Not only have users been putting the link through URL shorteners so it shows up unrecognizable, they’ve also managed to get it to not just crash Safari, but other browsers like Chrome as well.

The only way to truly avoid the link is to be super wary of what you’re clicking on, which is good Internet practice anyways. Unless, of course, someone is Rickrolling you. That’s always hilarious.

(Image via Twin Design / Shutterstock.com)

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