Opening night
I’d like to thank the needle, the seeds and whoever cut me in half.
Speech: 4.2 seconds. Could be faster.
Every serious industry has a Hall of Fame. Rock and roll has one. Baseball has one. Now browser tools have one too, and it looks exactly the way it should: a dark stage, a garland of bulbs, black-and-white portraits in a spotlight and brass plaques with engraving.
Visit the Hall of Fame: everyone has a page there with
- a portrait on a plinth, in the same ink as the blog comics;
- a plaque: stage name, instrument, day job, signature move, who it plays with, the debut date and the induction date;
- the original: the colour logo from the site, with what each detail means;
- a model sheet with four expressions, from calm to shocked;
- a biography and greatest hits: the comics where it starred.
1The class of 2026
Ten tools were inducted, in the order they took the stage:
- SmartBench, the Watermelon: a phone doctor with a gauge for a face.
- SpeedBench, the Pumpkin: measures your internet and always floors it.
- WhereBench, the Apple and the Worm: knows where you are. The worm knows too.
- KeyBench, the Corn: every kernel is a key.
- DropBench, the Pea Pod: sends files pea-to-pea.
- MeetBench, the Cherries: two cherries, one headset.
- PrivacyBench, the Onion: knows a bit too much and tells you exactly what.
- PhotoBench, the Blueberry: a berry with a lens for an eye.
- TypeBench, the Chili: hot fingers, rated in chilies.
- ToolBench, the Kiwi: a compass that points at the sun.
The first six opened the site together on September 28, 2026. Then came a very busy evening on October 1: the onion debuted first, the blueberry 56 minutes later, and the chili 37 minutes after that. The kiwi arrived the next day, fresh and well rested.
That evening, I debuted first.
By 56 minutes! You’ll never let it go, will you?
2Awaiting induction
Seven tools are still waiting in silhouette: QRBench, PDFBench, PassBench, TimeBench, TuneBench, DrawBench and RandomBench. Don’t feel sorry for them: they already work just as hard, they just haven’t had their plaques engraved yet. The silhouettes are a tradition, not a judgement. Mostly.
Is it our turn yet?
I’ve already rehearsed my speech. In three tunings.
3How to get in
There is no voting, no sponsorship and no bribery in seeds. A tool gets its plaque when it has a written biography, a drawn portrait and a model sheet, and when every fact on the plaque has been checked against the code and the guide of the tool. If the plaque says the chili rates you in chilies, it really does.
The debut date is not a marketing date either: it’s the day the tool’s first line of code appeared. So the hall has no legends about “the early days”, only commits.
Now shocked! Now sly! Four faces, please.
I’m a compass. I have one face!
Flash!
Come and visit
The Hall of Fame is open around the clock, admission is free, and there is no gift shop yet, but we are thinking about one. Pick your favourite and read its plaque: it says more about the tool than any advert would. And if you think someone in the queue deserves to go in first, write to 
. The pear says it has been tuning up for weeks.