An unofficial blog that watches Google's attempts to move your operating system online since 2005. Not affiliated with Google.

Send your tips to gostips@gmail.com.

January 25, 2011

Chrome's New Sad Tab Page

The latest Chromium builds include a new sad tab page that replaces the famous "aw, snap!" message with "he's dead, Jim!". The message continues: "Something caused this page to be killed , either because the operating system ran out of memory, or for some other reason. To continue, press Reload or go to another page." To see the page, just type about:kill in the address bar after opening a new tab.

"He's dead, Jim!" is a catchphrase used by Leonard H. McCoy, a character from Star Trek. "The line has entered popular culture as a general metaphor, with uses as diverse as descriptions of an unresponsive electronic circuit, an example of how to add an audio file to function as an alert sound in a computer system, and an illustrative quote regarding how to know if one's opponent has been destroyed in an action hero game."


Here's the old sad tab page:


{ Thanks, Chen. }

24 comments:

  1. I don't why, but on my about page, the dead tab icon has a bullet in the forehead, and blood..

    Here's a screenshot:
    http://maparadar.com/Bullet%20Tab.png

    ReplyDelete
  2. The passive language in the new box is interesting, too. Chrome's clearly not taking much responsibility for this crash.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bahaha, just checked it out. Mine has a bullet hole tooo Israel!

    ReplyDelete
  4. That's just too funny.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I prefer the "Aw snap!". Not every one knows who's jim. But I liked how they thoroughly explain the reason why it crashed.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mine also shows the bullet hole as well... Much nicer then the old message too. :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Please check my original screenshot: http://www.guao.hk/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/chrome_webpage_is_dead.png there is a bullet hole at Mr. Folder's head

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He's not a folder he's a tab (two tabs actually).

      Delete
  8. in Iron about:kill doesn't work. about:crash works though

    ReplyDelete
  9. How do you "press Reload"?! You can either "press F5" or "click Reload".

    ReplyDelete
  10. Why the capital D in Dead? It's a full sentence and correct capitalisation should be used.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Funny, but now wording is tl;dr.

    ReplyDelete
  12. At the risk of sounding pedantic, Bones never actually says the exact words "He's dead, Jim."

    ReplyDelete
  13. Bones did say "He's dead Jim", many times. Maybe you're thinking of the phrase "Beam me up Scotty"? That one never was used in the show!

    ReplyDelete
  14. How ridiculous is this - I saw the screen when I pressed restart - just for an instant and though it was some kind of virus - spent 25 mins - no wasted 25 mins trying to find out what the hell was going on only to find it was bloody google - grrrrrrr

    ReplyDelete
  15. Unfortunately, the portuguese translation doesn't do the quote justice. The translator obviously didn't watch Star Trek: The Original series - He replaced "Jim" with "João". Even though the names are roughly the translation of one another, it makes no sense whatsoever.

    ReplyDelete
  16. What about a dizzy tab? I have that!

    ReplyDelete
  17. This was curious to read! I see this tab every single day, so it was quite interesting for me to find out the meaning and the origin of the phrase.

    ReplyDelete
  18. My "He's dead Jim" page has the "tab" with swirly eyes and a tongue sticking out.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.