A Chrome Dinosaur

00:00 There are many examples in software that you might be aware of. So for instance, if you’re using a web browser, which is based on the open source Chromium project like Google Chrome or the recent Brave browser, you have to be offline to experience this.

00:15 So when there’s no internet access and you go somewhere, it displays this little dinosaur along with a boring message that there’s no internet, which is of course quite familiar.

00:26 And do you know why they put this T-Rex dinosaur there? I was always wondering. I thought it was maybe because Mozilla or something like that and having a dinosaur there.

00:37 Yeah. I was scratching my head once too. And apparently it was an inside joke and they wanted to refer to the prehistoric times where there was no internet.

00:47 So when you have no internet access, they show this little dinosaur to emphasize that. It’s like living in the prehistoric times these days without internet anymore.

00:56 That makes total sense. And I mean, this alone already is kind of like a little egg because it’s probably a joke that developers had, but I guess there is a bit more to this dinosaur as well.

01:07 It’s not just an image that’s showing there. Yeah, you’re quite right. When you hit a space bar or you’re up hierarchy on the keyboard, you can actually start playing the dinosaur.

01:16 So it starts this little game inside your browser to entertain yourself while there’s no internet.

01:23 And you can jump, you can crouch to avoid the enemies and obstacles and score points. So there’s a little hidden game, which you might have not known before, and this is a great example of an Easter egg in your web browsers.

01:38 So Easter eggs are super popular in video games. That’s probably the biggest type of software where you would go and find those Easter eggs. But that’s not the rule. There are some professional software applications, which also include Easter eggs.