Chrome T-Rex Offline Game Parties With Birthday Hat, Cake

Losing Internet connection in the middle of browsing, while undesirable, is an unavoidable fact of life. But rather than waste your time whining and groaning and gnashing your teeth, a Chrome developer would rather have you waste your time playing a game while waiting for the world to make things right again. That T-Rex game may have successfully distracted many a frustrated user, but it has been widely regarded as a one-trick pony. Now, however, it has gained a new ability. It can eat a birthday cake and grow a birthday hat on its pixelized head.

For the unfamiliar, the T-Rex game is an endless runner that only appears when you lose your Internet connection while loading a page. When the usual error message pops up, simply press your spacebar to start the game. Pressing spacebar makes the dino jump, which is necessary to avoid the cacti and stay alive. That's pretty much it.

Starting today, you might see a birthday cake on the never-ending road. Don't jump over those, though. Allow yourself to be touched by the dessert and witness your T-Rex grow a birthday hat. Just like anything with the game, that hat is useless.

So why the birthday theme? That's because T-Rex wants to celebrate Chrome's 10th birthday too. But since he can only appear when the world goes offline, this is his only respite. Of course, you could also force your Chrome browser to go offline without affecting anything else. Just go to the Developer Tools (or hit Ctrl+Shift+I) and under the Network tab, check the "Offline" option beside "Disable Cache" (you might have to resize the side panel to see it).

Happy Birthday, Chrome! Maybe next time you'll properly invite T-Rex to your party. The only upside is that T-Rex "birthday edition" will be available not just on a single day but all throughout September. Now who wouldn't want to be able to eat cake for a month?