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.

01:48 There are some professional software applications, which also include Easter eggs.