Using outdated Chrome 32-bit

Question

Somewhat irrelevant, but still:

Due to economical limits I am on a rather old PC. One of the issues is that it is 32-bit.

I was using FireFox for a long time, but due to memory usage I finally went over to Google-Chrome. After years using this it went out of 32-bit production.

I have tested out Chromium and Vivaldi, but, though I favor the latter it is still not “the same” and I tend to fall back on old Chrome.

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My question is how bad it is to use outdated software like 32-bit chrome (Linux) – when mainly using on trusted sites?

I am only using it on sites I “trust” (trust is used in a somewhat broad sense here), like stackexchange, a few news-sites, google.com etc.

I also use multiple profiles, if that makes any difference. (Ease of profile use is one of the reasons I use it.) I have bare bone profile for testing various development. I have one developer profile for extensions. I have one for stackexchange and resource research, one for news and other crap, and so on.

I do not use it for e.g. banking or other sites that require identification or other security prone needs.

I understand any site can be hacked, any site can be injected with malware that exploits for example “dumb asses” like me. My somewhat naive thought is that; if any of the sites are compromised, I'm going to get noticed, and can take action if that happens. Is this only wishful thinking?

If continuing; Are there any other precautions I can take. Is there for example any

Answer 1

I understand any site can be hacked, any site can be injected with malware that exploits for example “dumb asses” like me. My somewhat naive thought is that; if any of the sites are compromised, I'm going to get noticed, and can take action if that happens. Is this only wishful thinking?

Yes, this is wishful thinking.

For a well crafted exploit, you will likely never notice if it's running on your machine, unless of course, it wanted to be noticed.

Also, for the news sites you frequent, here's an article talking about how one major news site was hacked by chinese hackers. Even Google was the target of an attack of sorts (although, this particular attack would likely not succeed if you were using Google Chrome).

I would suggest either:

1. Getting a 64 bit OS (I'm not sure how little RAM your machine has, but 4GB is enough to justify and support 64bit)
2. Moving to a browser that supports 32 bit and is updated. My understanding is that Chromium supports 32 bit still but don't quote me on that.

Answer 2

I would advise to try to keep your browser up to date. It's your best protection.

Trusted website doesn't mean much on the web. Most websites will load resources from multiple sites AND display publicity which are out of their control. When visiting any website it's like saying : yes I trust these 10 websites.. For example, this webpage is loading content from :

• ajax.googleapis.com
• area51.stackexchange.com
• b.scorecardresearch.com
• cdn.sstatic.net
• edge.quantserve.com
• engine.adzerk.net
• pixel.quantserve.com
• static.adzerk.net
• www.google-analytics.com
• www.gravatar.com

Do you trust all those domains? Even worse, can you certify that none of these domains have been compromised? Because if any of those domain is compromised, it could serve you an exploit.

Your browser is a very good sandbox. It protects the rest of your computer from any content you visit on the web. But, it can only do so if you keep it up to date.