This is what you see when you visit about:internets. This is freaking awesome.
Years ago there was an idea to include the kitchen sink in Mozilla (you can view it here, not sure if that works in IE). It was a good idea considering it had everything else at the time.
I initially thought it was written using <canvas/>
. I tried the typical view-source:, but in this case it doesn’t seem to work. The performance was really smooth with minimal CPU, more than <canvas/>
typically allows. Now I was curious.
Then looking at the source it became obvious in about 0.1 seconds:
It’s using the actual Windows screensaver (which is why it doesn’t work in Vista I presume). I hope for the Mac and Linux port they bundle jwz’s excellent XScreenSaver. Due to jwz’s impact in browsers and open source, I think there would be even better easter egg. From a quick look at the code it seems it’s not hard to do since every tab is it’s own process, it’s essentially just running the process inside the view.
For those who don’t understand why this is all so amusing, read this Wikipedia article about the “Series of Tubes“. It will only kill a small percentage of brain cells since it’s just the Wikipedia article explaining it. There are other Tubes references as I mentioned last night.
Thanks to those who left a comment in my last post for pointing this out.
By the way, check out Brendan’s post on TraceMonkey performance. He did a better comparison at actual JS performance. I only looked at selectors really quick.
21 replies on “about:internets”
about:internets | Robert Accettura’s Fun With Wordage…
This is what you see when you visit about:internets. This is freaking awesome (και λίγα λες) It’s using the actual Windows screensaver (which is why it doesn’t work in Vista I presume)….
[…] Accettura worked out how this was implemented by exploring the Chrome source code. All Chrome does is to call the Windows […]
[…] Chrome I thought you guys might find this interesting. Here are his initial thoughts on Chrome, and the easter egg he discovered. External link: […]
Yeh, it really doesn’t work with vista.
Doesn’t work here either, in Vista. Tab has a different text “The Tubes are … ” something, but no screensaver.
Correct. Vista doesn’t include the screensaver so it doesn’t work. Technically if you put another screensaver in the Windows Screen Saver directory with the name
sspipes.scr
it should run that. This is a known issue (even referenced in the code).[…] – Curiosità : prova a scrivere nella barra degli indirizzi “about:internets“. […]
[…] a fun thing to do with Google Chrome. Â If you type about:internets in the Omnibar, you get this. Â I tried it while connected to my PC […]
[…] Cute meme-geeky easter egg in Google’s new webbrowser Chrome: This is what you see when you visit about:internets. This is freaking awesome. […]
[…] — адреÑ? “about:internets” в новом браузере выглÑ?дит проÑ?то замечательно (this references two popular Internet memes: Internets and Series of tubes, ага). Ñ?овÑ?ем […]
No one in their right mind would be using Vista.
Use XP noobs!
about:internets…
Laut Robert Accettura sieht man genau das, wenn man about:internets IM neuen Google Ding eingibt. Wenn es tatsächlich so ist, dann ist es das Einzige, was ich irgendwie toll finde, an diesem ne…
this has got to be one of the funniest easter eggs i have seen in a LONG time. f u ted stevens 😉
[…] Yes. The easter egg (or perhaps one of the easter eggs, not sure) appears when you type about:internets in the address bar. Note however this only works on Windows XP, not on Vista. If you can’t see it, take a look at this screenshot… […]
I tested this before on VMWare on the Mac for Windows XP SP3 and nothing happened, but sure shows off Google’s awesome sense of humor!
Cheers.
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[…] "about:internets" Easter egg in Google Chrome (tags: totag) […]
there are so many advantages and features with Chrome, such as it’s speed, for example; now if only they would take care it’s quirky cookie management…
[…] premier trouvé par Robert Accetura est l’image ci-dessous qui apparaît est l’image ci-dessous qui apparaît quand on tape […]
The Kitchen Sink ‘hack’ in Mozilla is actually just a google search using the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ option.
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