If you get bored and fancy a quick game of something, you can play one in Firefox’s address bar – once you know how.
Mozilla’s browser boasts an easter-egg, as spotted by Soeren Hentzschel, that is only triggered when using the address bar’s calculator feature.
Normally, the sum of a calculation appears with an icon to copy the value to your clipboard. But if that sum is 150, a Firefox icon appears instead. Clicking this icon unfurls a drop-down with a playable version of the well-known mini-game Snake.
To try it out, open Firefox, focus the address bar and type in 100+50. A Firefox icon shows next to the sum alongside the copy button. Same deal for 15^2-75, or 75*2 or any other supported math formula that results in 150.
If the sum is anything but 150, no game.
Press play to see Firefox’s hidden snake game in action
The feature has been present in Firefox 151, says Hentzschel.
Gameplay is straightforward: keyboard arrow keys move the Firefox-headed snake up, down, left and right respectively.
Your goal is to guide the Firefox snap around the board and eat the dots that appear – but avoid colliding with the edge of the play board or your own tail.
Simple? Kinda, but those dots make the snake’s tail grow over time. The more dots, the longer you last, the higher the score – the harder the challenge!
Firefox isn’t the first web browser to come with a game hidden inside. The best known is Google’s iconic Chrome dinosaur game, and Vivaldi has an arcade game built-in that’s fun to futz about with when you have a few minutes.
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