Finding Easter Eggs have always been a fun activity whether it be with your friends in your garden on Easter Sunday or in navigating your collector’s edition DVD. Easter eggs have, of course, evolved to also refer to other hidden items – particularly in the digital realm where programmers and developers are able to program in a little something ‘extra’ for those with the time to look.
Browsers are no different. With millions of people using browser software to freely roam around the World Wide Web, it’s no wonder how much funding and support goes into the developing of browsers, which is why they’re also one of the software regularly peppered by many Easter eggs. Here are a few of our favorites:
Mozilla on Robots
Mozilla’s browser, Firefox, has a built-in reference guide of sorts tackling various subject matters to do with Firefox. All you have to do is type about:about to access a menu page for the various Firefoc ‘about’ pages to find what it is you need. A closer look would tell you however, that they also have an about page for robots. Click on this link from the about:about page or just type in about:robots on your Firefox browser and you’ll be greeted with this screen:
To the uninitiated, this page might just seem like a bunch of random made-up stuff about robots – and it is. But they’re a bunch of made-up stuff about robots from famous pop culture robot references. In the order they’re listed, the lines are from:
- Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics
- Blade Runner
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
- Futurama
As a bonus, the title tag, ‘Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!’ is a reference to The Day the Earth Stood Still.
The Book of Mozilla
If you noticed from the about:about page we mentioned earlier, there’s also an entry for about:Mozilla. You might think you’re in for a company profile sort of thing when you click on it, but what you actually get is this creepily foreboding excerpt from ‘The Book of Mozilla’:
It reads:
Mammon slept. And the beast reborn spread over the earth and its numbers grew legion. And they proclaimed the times and sacrificed crops unto the fire, with the cunning of foxes. And they built a new world in their own image as promised by the sacred words, and spoke of the beast with their children. Mammon awoke, and lo! it was naught but a follower.
from The Book of Mozilla, 11:9 (10th Edition)
Interactive Google Searches
Google is also home to a ton of little Easter eggs, especially with its interactive searches. Try searching for ‘do a barrel roll’ and you’ll get treated to a sudden screen spin as if you did a barrel roll yourself in front of your computer (which is something we advise against).
Try searching for these on Google to see what we mean:
‘anagram’
‘define anagram’
‘recursion’
‘askew’ or ’tilt’
‘zerg rush’ – A reference to the classic game StarCraft from Blizzard
‘conway’s game of life’ – A reference to the cellular automaton ‘game’ from British mathematician John Horton Conway.