Easter eggs online

This tradition has leaped into the digital world where moviemakers, game designers and bored developers thought of a quirky little surprise or joke that they would hide in their project. Almost no one could find it and if they did it was by accident. These neat little surprises are called, of course, Easter eggs! And because quirky is the middle name of Make it Max we decided to roam and scour the internet in search of the best Easter eggs these bored developers have hidden in plain sight.

Now follows a list of the ones we could find (and still work), so enjoy! 

(There are so many Easter eggs that we tried to stick to websites and web apps.)

FYI: spoiler alert!

1. One of the most famous ones: Google’s Barrel roll.

Just try it. Type Do a barrel roll and see what happens.

FYI there are A LOT of Google Easter eggs (79!) so we won’t clog the list with all of these beauties.

Make sure to at least play the Dino game when your connection is lost in Google Chrome and the Atari game (type Atari Breakout on the Google homepage and hit ‘I’m feeling lucky’).

2. Spotify

We know the music from Star Wars is not something to enjoy as some light listening but if you ever stumble upon the soundtrack in your desktop app you’ll notice a tiny little lightsaber in the progress bar. Spotify had an Easter egg on the track from Stranger Things where the progress bar turned into a flashlight and the whole screen became dark with floating spores. Unfortunately this one is no longer available.

3. Konami Code

Konami code was developed by Kazuhisa Hashimoto in 1986 (!). It’s a combination of keystrokes (or moves on the controller) that allow you to unlock special features in games and websites.

It’s up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A. Try it on the website of GoSkills and see what happens.

4. Google Assistant, Alexa and Siri

It’s not a website or an app but the Konami Code also works on Google assistant, Alexa and Siri. Say up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A and something fun will happen.

These devices also have other funny features; tell them to tell a joke, ask them to beatbox or ask Siri ‘What does the fox say?’.

5. The Oatmeal

Maybe you know the Oatmeal; it’s a funny comic brand by Matthew Inman. He makes comics that have a dark side to it that are in his books, games and social media. The Oatmeal has an Easter egg hidden in his code, so only if you know how to inspect the code you can see it. 

(psst, just click right mouse button and select inspect source or inspect. You’re welcome.)

6. Amazon

Amazon has done the same joke with their code. At the bottom of the code of their homepage you’ll find a duck. That meows. Sigh…:

7. Asana

If you’re working in an agency or a company that uses software to keep track of their tasks through the team, you’ve maybe heard of Asana. This piece of software had a special section in their settings that’s called ‘Hacks’. Here you can try some experimental stuff but also turn on ‘Extra Delight’ mode.  If you hit TAB-B or TAB-V a cat or dog will pop up on your screen.

They also have a celebration checkbox in the ‘Display’ section where you can turn on ‘extra celebrations’ when you complete tasks. It really makes your day! 

8. Wikipedia

Even Wikipedia is joining the party. On the English page search for Easter egg, and see what happens when you click on the tiny easter egg in the picture on the right…

9. Useless websites

If you go to this website, you’ll have access to the most useless websites ever created. Some are quite awesome, others are just really stupid, but you’ll never come across these websites when you’re just browsing because most of these sites don’t have much content on them and Google doenst really likes that.

The thing about Easter eggs

There were a lot of awesome Easter eggs out there. But most of them are already gone. Each time a website gets updated the easter egg disappears (or dies, depends how you look at it). 

So there are lots of lists where you can find the best Easter eggs ever created but most of them have vanished into the depths of the gruesome archives of the internet.

If you have any Easter eggs you want to share; please do because we just LOVE these little surprises!