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Browser and OS Currency Check Guide

A reference for the DeskTest.net Browser and OS Currency Check. It explains what the tool judges, how the current / update available / END OF LIFE verdict is decided, why the built-in baseline can lag reality, and exactly how to bring each browser and Windows build back into support.

Open the Currency Check →

What does this check judge?

Two things, and it takes a position on both:

  1. Your browser. It reads the brand and full version, then classifies it as current, an update behind, or end of life against a baseline that ships inside the page.
  2. Your operating system. On Chromium browsers it can tell Windows 10 from Windows 11 precisely. Windows 11 is current; Windows 10 is flagged as past end of support.

The output is deliberately unambiguous. An out-of-date browser or an unsupported Windows build is not a cosmetic issue - it is a security liability, because it stops receiving the patches that close known, publicly documented vulnerabilities. The verdict is written so a front-desk or leasing-office user can screenshot it and send it to IT with no further explanation needed.

How it differs from Browser Test and System Info

DeskTest.net has neighbouring tools that report the same raw facts but on purpose do not judge them:

This tool is the judgement layer on top of those facts. Use Browser Test to answer "will this web app run"; use the Currency Check to answer "is this workstation a security risk that needs updating."

When should I run this?

How the verdict is decided

Each component gets one of three verdicts. The overall verdict at the top of the page takes the worst of the two.

VerdictMeaningColor
CurrentMajor version is at or above the current-stable baseline (or, for Firefox, on the supported ESR channel). Windows 11 is treated as current.Green - pass
Update availableOne or more major versions behind current stable, but not yet in the end-of-life band. Patch soon.Amber - warn
END OF LIFEFar enough behind that months of security fixes are missing, or a retired product (Internet Explorer, legacy Edge, Windows 10 after its deadline).Red - fail

The comparison step shows both the detected version and the exact baseline it was measured against, so you or your IT team can sanity-check the call rather than taking it on faith. Firefox is handled specially: the Extended Support Release channel intentionally runs an older major version than the mainline release, so an ESR build that is still supported is reported as current with an "ESR" note rather than being wrongly flagged as behind.

Why the baseline can lag, and the caveat

Important: this tool compares against a version list that is written into the page itself. Browsers ship a new major version roughly every four weeks. If the copy of this page you are viewing is old, its idea of "current" is also old, and a browser that is genuinely up to date could be reported as slightly behind.

That is why every verdict prints the date the baseline was last updated and links to the vendor's official release page. Treat the tool as a fast first pass: a red END OF LIFE result on a years-old browser is almost certainly right, but a borderline "update available" on a browser that updated last week is worth confirming against the vendor page before you act. The tool is honest about this on purpose - a currency checker that hides its own staleness is worse than useless.

The authoritative pages to confirm against:

The Windows 10 end-of-support reality

Windows 10 reached end of support on October 14, 2025. After that date Microsoft stopped shipping free security updates for the consumer and Pro editions. A machine still running Windows 10 does not stop working, but it stops getting patches for newly discovered vulnerabilities, which is exactly the risk this tool exists to surface.

When the check detects Windows 10, it marks the OS END OF LIFE and offers three realistic paths:

Note on detection: Windows 10 and Windows 11 both report the raw string "Windows NT 10.0" in the user agent. Only Chromium browsers expose the extra client hint that separates them. In Firefox or Safari the tool honestly reports "Windows 10 or 11" and tells you to confirm with winver, rather than guessing.

How to update each browser and Windows

Chrome

Open chrome://settings/help. Chrome downloads the update and applies it on the next restart. On managed machines, push the current build through Chrome Browser Cloud Management, Intune, or group policy rather than relying on the user.

Edge

Open edge://settings/help. Edge follows the Chromium release cadence and is serviced through Microsoft Edge Update; on Windows it also flows through Windows Update on supported builds.

Firefox

Menu, Help, About Firefox triggers the update. Enterprise fleets usually run the ESR channel, which stays on an older but still-supported major version; that is fine and the tool reports it as current.

Opera and Brave

Both update from their About dialog and both follow Chromium. Brave hides itself as Chrome in the plain user agent, so on non-Chromium detection paths it may be read as Chrome - confirm the brand in the About dialog if it matters.

Safari

Safari ships with macOS and updates through Software Update. You cannot install a newer Safari on an older macOS; the OS version is the real gate.

Windows

Confirm the exact build with winver or Settings > System > About. For feature updates and the Windows 11 upgrade, use Windows Update or your management tool (Intune, WSUS, SCCM).

For IT admins

Currency is a fleet property, not a per-user one. The sustainable pattern is to enforce browser and OS updates through policy and use this tool as a spot-check and as evidence, not as the enforcement mechanism.

Browsers: pin the update policy to "always allow updates" and set the rollout target to the latest stable version, then roll a specific version back through policy only if a release breaks a vendor app. Freezing a browser indefinitely is how a workstation ends up years behind and failing this check. Chrome uses the chrome.admx templates; Edge uses msedge.admx; Firefox uses policies.json or the Mozilla ADMX.

Operating system: track which machines are still on Windows 10 and put them on a dated remediation plan. After the October 2025 deadline this is an audit and cyber-insurance exposure, not just a preference. Where hardware cannot take Windows 11, budget the refresh rather than carrying an unsupported OS on a network that also handles resident payment data.

Using the report: the Copy Diagnostic Report button produces a plain-text summary - detected browser and OS, the baseline each was compared against, the verdict and reason for each, the overall result, and the vendor pages to confirm against. Paste it straight into a ticket. The Send to your IT button opens the same text in a pre-filled email.

Behind the scenes

The check prefers navigator.userAgentData.getHighEntropyValues(), a Chromium-only API that returns the browser full version list and the Windows platformVersion. Per Microsoft's mapping, a platform version major of 13 or higher means Windows 11, and 1 through 12 means Windows 10; a major of 0 means Windows 8.1 or older. This is the only reliable in-browser way to separate Windows 10 from Windows 11.

For Firefox and Safari, which do not expose client hints, the tool parses navigator.userAgent for the brand and version and honestly reports that it cannot distinguish the two Windows versions from the user agent alone. It never guesses a Windows build it cannot prove.

The version baseline is a plain constant in app.js with an explicit LAST_UPDATED date. There is no lookup service and no network request of any kind: the page cannot phone home, and the comparison is entirely local and view-source-provable. That design choice is deliberate - the trade-off is that the baseline must be refreshed when the page is updated, which is exactly what the caveat warns about.

Nothing leaves the browser. The report is plain text assembled in memory and copied to the clipboard through navigator.clipboard.writeText, with a synthetic textarea fallback for browsers that block clipboard writes.

Elsewhere on the web: