- 420chan claimed to be taken down by the FBI for hosting child pornography and copyright violations.
- Airliners.net changed their colours saying, "With over 98% male users, Airliners.net needs to take major action to attract more female visitors."
- Albino Blacksheep Overhyped the "best" new animation by the "best" animator titled "We R Friends Again".
- BattleRealms.us turned into a "Donkey Singing" along with a color scheme change that is far different from the default red and black that they use.
- Bungie.net posted several fake news stories including "Flood on the Plane" (a takeoff on "Snakes on a Plane") as well as their annual April "Pimps at Sea" update.
- CollegeHumor.com fakes what looks like an overseas webpage. The original is available from a link in the new page.
- Vanilla Coke rumors began circulating around the internet that Coca-Cola was going to discontinue its popular selling vanilla flavored cola in favor of a new diet version of Coca-Cola called Coca-Cola Unsweetened .
- Double Minor Hockey Network claimed to be charged by the National Hockey League with copyright violations. The site was offline for days, and finally relaunched with a new webdesign.
- Gbatmw small community and a website for downloading Gameboy Advance formatted videos, changed its website's banner to another portable movie player enemy 'Psp the Movie Way'.
- Fazed.org turned pink and creator, Spunone, announced that he sold the domain for 5 million dollars and that it would soon become a social networking site
- Fotopic temporarily became Fotopicr.net , a member of the ''R! Conspiracy''. Additionally the front page Featured Photo became a photo of the front page, which in turn had a photo of the front page, repeat ad infinitum.
- GameFAQs hosted an image that said stated, "You can cheat but you can't hide" {Link without Title} logo. They explained that GameFAQs had been shut down by a group of game programmers. Their reasoning was that people who cheated at video games cheated game developers that had spent hundreds of hours developing it. Visitors who scrolled down to the end of the page got a notice that said that it was just an April Fool's joke and that they would be redirected in 60 seconds.
- golemtemplates.com Template web page switches their layout to display terrible web designs and stock photos no one would want.
- gprime.net Main web page was switched to http://gprime.net/indexu.php , a fake blog of a nonexistent entity named "Gimpy" -- a character, referred to by his "followers" as G-Prime, from the MTV cartoon Undergrads . The blog features numerous quotes from the show.
- Hogwarts Live made tyhe game randomly insert bork bork language into the game. After an avalabnche of complaints, a newsletter was issued that day saying that it was just a joke.
- Hungarian Unix Portal The main page was changed to: D3f4<3d by y3rt h4x0r gr0up! (yert is a reverse name of HUP editor: trey)
- I-Mockery changed the theme and name of their website to I-Grounds, claiming that they had been acquired by Newgrounds . A news post on Newgrounds.com was coordinated with this to go along with the joke. {Link without Title}
- Kingdom Of Loathing claimed to have been shut down, and the site for sale by " {Link without Title} site-pimp.com", which also featured a number of humourous fake links, such as "barely paralegal teens" and "XXX hobo on hobo action". Clicking on any of the fake links would bring you back to the main site.
- Linkfilter changes its default theme to resemble that of MetaFilter [http://users.linkfilter.net/%7Edeathburger/images/metalinkfilter.png].
- Metalstorm.ee was "hacked" by a group called the "Disc0 Hax0rz CRew". When the website was accessed on that day, it redirected to the window, " pWnedD! " The "Disco Prank" is actually a recurring theme on the website during April Fool's Day. On 1 April, 2005 , Metal Storm supposedly changed their name to "Disco Storm". Pranks like these where the site appears to have been hacked are usually taken very seriously by many of the forum members on the site, as the site was hacked for real once before in the past.
- Meshteam.com got "hacked" by Neo, which prompted a great opportunity to implement their new site design.
- Mugglenet claimed to have merged with The Leaky Cauldron , forming a new site, LeakyMug . Additionally, the prank site (which is still up) claimed that the site administrators of Mugglenet and Leaky Cauldron were engaged to be married in reference.
- The Myriad Forums changed their splash page into a furry fandom pornography site, with random flash animations in the links. Archive
- N-sider changed their site design to "Vent-Sider," a source for all things pertaining to vents. In addition, their message forums were altered with a text-replacement filter which switched critical components of the English language like "it," "and," "for," and "the" in members' posts.
- OAFEnet changed their usual blue colors to purple, and flipped their logo backwards, in honor of both April Fool's Day and the beginning of a week of Bizarro -related reviews.
- Rotten Maverick Suddenly changed to a Tim Allen fan site, with an obnoxious annoying looping Tim Allen grunt and Tim Allen gif in the site layout.
- Southparkx.net said their website was bought out by the popular toy website toyzz.com. Who have also bought out sweeet.com and thehellhole.com.
- SQPN 's Father Roderick announced on his Daily Breakfast podcast, show #100, that his archdiocese was shutting down his podcast due to the amount of time he spends on it.
- StarTrek.com claims to have an exclusive preview of a new version of the website, but the link goes to a cheaply made 90s webpage about Star Trek, flashing graphics and all [http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/news/article/15578.html].
- StarWars.com made an announcement on its main page linking to an article explaining that characters from the '' Willow '' universe had been inserted into the official '' Star Wars '' Canon [http://www.starwars.com/databank/updates/401/news20060401.html].
- Tamsworld.net claimed that the family-related content will be thrown away and will be changed to McMug contents.
- Techzone , a Portuguese forum for computer addicts changed its look to pink colours, claiming it was the result of a new sponsor to be announced within the next days, which demanded this exclusive look. Users were unable to switch to the usually available skins.
- Team Rocket's Rockin' , an established Pokémon website, changed into a parody of less professional Pokémon websites (ex: containing fake cheat codes and screen shots).
- United Bimmer - BMW forums overrun with pink and non-tasteful ricer modding.
- Weblognews.nl announced to pay Bloggers for their posts if they placed an iframe-banner on their site. Many signed up, only to see the banner on their own site change to "Wooot! you're pwned by Ochblog !" on April first.
- WRANKmusic - instead of the normal music news site, points to a Fraggle Rock fan club web site last edited in 1999.
- The NUbuntu Linux distribution homepage has adopted a pink background and a banner proclaiming "OMG PONIES!".
- YTMND claimed to be bought by EBaum's World , turning the homepage to the Ebamsworld template, adding ads and supposedly pop-ups.
- Zooomr changes name to Zooooomr^3 and boasts Flickr-esque layout.
- Animal Crossing Community had a "glitch" in its Private Thread system where all text was put into spoilers, also known as invisible text. Every time that you sent a PT, you would see no text, and have to highlight to see anything. The members believed that it was a glitch, or even that the website had been hacked. In reality, It was a joke, which ended at 12:00 AM, April 2nd.
- Cadet-World Avatars shuffled uncontrollably among users and changed after pressing "refresh".
- Cartoon Network 's Adult Swim message board administrators changed the language filter from normal "
--bleep
--" to funny sayings like '
--GOLD TEETH
--. However, they took it down within a couple hours. They renamed several members to 'Canada' and various other countries and cities.
- Clan Templates and its owner Zesix Interactive faked an auction and posted itself for sale on SitePoint and receiving six figures in bids before unexpectedly shutting down the auction.
- DDRFreak.com Randomized the posts made in all forums and any post that was made until edited by the poster themselves.
- Fark.com 's index page randomly chose between, Guinea pigs hacking their servers, Drew Curtis 's "Modabuse" page, "Site Filter", and "The Horney Toad".
- FEABL made all of the members 'Admins', and made the Admins 'Members'. The Admins also renamed themselves after promient GFAQs members. Numerous Moderators also swapped identities for the day.
- Gametalk.com owner Mike Pooler messed around with the site's word filter, replacing some words with others. For example, "like" was changed with "love", "is" with "isn't", and "me" with "my kitten".
- Garry.tv put a 'Do Not Click This' button to its forums. When someone clicks it he gets autobanned for one day. The Autoban system also returned and began banning people for minor spelling and grammar errors.
- Fagex.net was replaced by an image of a "real" Jag(e)x post saying that the owner of the site was contacted etc and was taken down with legal actions ensuing.
- UER.ca a popular urban exploration website, changed their website to Deggi6, a strange black and metal theme. Much controversy followed after a member claimed it was his idea.
- Live.com 's MSN Search Engine doesn't display results but pops a message saying "April Fools".
- New York rock band , only to discover the game does not exist and the player is identified as a "pervert" in a mocking manner.
- Neopets released "Neocharge" to their players. This "new feature" charged players neopoints for each page they loaded on the site and kept a message box onscreen at all times displaying the amount owed. If you tried to pay, you were informed that it would take 24 hours to process. Neocharge disappeared later in the day.
- Nudography 's thumbnails. You were able to click on thumbnails and enlarge them for the first time but all you were served was an April Fool's picture.
- 0second 's Forum had its font changed so all text was viewed in " 13375p34K !", causing stress for any members attempting to read posts.
- OverClocked ReMix had pretended to require a subscription to download music, however the music was still accessible by clicking on a button guised as a sample. Any attempts to point it out as an April Fools joke on the forum were deleted that day.
- The administration of Pokémon Community staged a 'hacking' of the board by first setting all of the colours to black and then setting loose a 'hacker' that appeared to ban moderators on the board.
- Taleworlds 's moderators changed the language filters on the message boards so that all user spoke with a German accent. In addition, the owner's name was changed to 'Mr Bubbles'.
- TV Forum 's thumbnails switched around the links. eg: If you click one for one link to goes it to another.
- Woot.com sold a $19.99 " MAG KleerDrain Instant Drain Opener ", and the "I want one!" button was modified to follow the user's cursor, disallowing them from doing anything on the site other than buying the product. Also self-declared as the '06 Worst Woot Candidate.
- 2Bangkok.com had a series of fake news items including a report that a new religious shrine in the shape of giant golden hand holding a mobile phone was planned for Bangkok and that anyone posting to a forum would have to have their post approved by the Ministry of Culture.
- ActiveWin.com has posted 6 exclusive screenshots of an early Alpha version of Windows IE 8.0, codename "Teahupoo".
- Authors of Amarok announce version 2.0 of their multimedia player together with the first Windows port.
- The American Chinese Culture Association reported the independence of California, claiming any individual with a valid California address on March 31, 2006 is eligible to become a citizen of the Republic of California.
- AntonioMassa It is rumored that the owner of the website has been sent to prison for "the goat incident" and there will be no more posts until his release. (A posting strike)
- Astronomy Picture of the day Using the new camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to confirm that the Moon is made of green cheese. The telling clue was the resolution of a marked date after which the Moon may go bad.
- AOL UK announce a new Reality Show , where celebrities will operate on members of the public. This entertainment news item seems to be in AOL members-only pages. The link for members of the public to apply to be operated on goes to April Fools hoax on Google .
- Apress Merger Apress announced it was merging with O'Reilly to form O'Really
- ArchLinux announced that it will no longer be bleeding edge -- instead shifting to a -stable tree for production and enterprise quality releases.
- A few '''s FTP . This turned out to be only a half-truth, rather than a full prank, as ''Rockman Forte'' is going to be a fan-game.
- Bebo , an online social network site especially popular in the UK and Ireland, announced a "Forehead Advertising" campaign where users could earn "gold member status" if they sent in pictures of themselves with "Bebo" written on their forehead. The next day the announcement added "OK, so this started out as an April Fool's joke, but a rather large number of people actually did it, so who are we not to honor our promise!"
- BitmeTV Announced can't hide" page (A parody of the MPAA 's anti-piracy Catchphrase , "You can click but you can't hide") and claims to be shut down by court order. In addition, the Poll of the Day on thethat they are randomly disabling accounts due to serverload
- Blendernation announces that Ton Roosendaal, the main developer of .
- Blizzard Entertainment has announced a new company-owned restaurant chain called BurgerCraft, in which you can order Yamato Burgers, Zealot Fries, and much more. You can also gain Hunger Points to reach the rank of Grand Gourmand and access the Secret Cow Level, the VIP lounge. While the press release is dated April 1, the annoucement on the main page is dated March 31.
- '' will be Wisps . They possess the radical ability to detonate themselves in order to strengthen their fellow players or weaken enemies, using this ability would however permanently kill the player. Many players claimed that this is not a joke, considering the news was released on March 31 - the day April Fool's Day. However, when the information was released, it was April 1st in China and Japan, with China having a very large World Of Warcraft presence.
- Boakes.org started a rumour in advance of April 1 that .
- BudgetingInfo , renamed itself to "tight arse info" - including a new logo.
- BZPower posted fake information on Bionicle from 2007-9 including news of Piraka Teaparty sets. The article ended making fun of the Bionicle Toothbrush es.
- Channel 9 Mike Hall - Network Enabled Refrigeration Device (and pranks at Microsoft)
- ChessBase reports that an international watchdog group, the League for Truth and Veracity, is threatening news services as well as private pranksters all over the world with lawsuits for publishing false information on April 1st.
- to construct a dome over Wrigley Field , and to rename the park Walter E. Smithe Field.
- Clantemplates , an online design and gaming community, had told all members the sale of their network, Z6, for several hundred thousands of dollars.
- Colgate-Palmolive announces it shall be merging with NYLUG in an effort to create open source cleaning products.
- ConservativeDebate posted a fake article concerning a make-believe trip that Sandra Day O'Connor made to the UN. The word censor was also changed so every use of the article 'a' was replaced with the message "April fools".
- Podcastshow Coverville had a one-off “Originalville” with the old originals of such classics as Britney's "Oops I did it again"
- Dlxsf.com , a skateboard product distributor website claimed to premiere a free skate video on their website,
- Domai (Not Safe For Work) reported that the free daily images of nude women would only be available to members due to bandwidth issues.
- Dotcomr has announced that they will be changing names back to their previous names and were at one time considering bologna sandwich.
- The Dungeons & Dragons home page reverted to 17-year-old 2nd Edition artwork, while announcing D&D-branded orc-flavoured bacon and a new line of miniatures including Modrons and the invisible stalker ("so much more than just an empty base").
- eBaum's World - Created multiple fake government regulation sites involving the "Internet Regulations and Legislation Bureau"; showed censored versions of several of their media to get the point across. [http://ebaumsworld.com/irlb_censorship.html]
- Conservative journal Enter Stage Right announced on its blog that its conservative founder had converted to liberalism and would use the site to only promote "social justice"
- Fetish Cycles is bought out by Quality Bike Products, introduce the "Snuff" frame. [http://ridefetish.com/blog/show/352]
- firebirdnews.org made an announcement that MySQL AB acquired Firebird Foundation
- Florida Keys Treasures reports that Dubai has purchased the entire island of Key West . President George W. Bush supported the deal and said he would veto any attempt to block the sale. Also has a story about a mutant strain of pine beetle is wreaking havoc on the Big Pine Key islands most luxurious homes, and sparking a response far more furious than any directed at the pests chewing up the pine trees.
- The FreeBSD Project announced the release of version 2.2.9 of the FreeBSD operating system, after "seventy-seven months of tireless work by the FreeBSD developers, users, their children, and their pets."
- Free Energy News posted a spoof set of news bullets, such as "Car runs off road kill"; "Energizer Bunny arrested - Charged with battery"; and "Nano stirling engine created to harness cigarette smoke energy to power air freshener."
- Freenode head of staff, Rob Levin, sent a global announcement suggesting that people join the OFTC network and announce that Freenode had closed down and repointed its servers there.
- Freeplayer.org created a fake mod of Freeplayer and fooled more than 850 people to download it.
- GameDev.net posted an April Fool press release title "EA Shape the Future of the Games Industry" in which it was announced that Electronic Arts acquired the popular game development web site.
- GameDrift.com reported that Jack Thompson won a lawsuit against Take-Two Interactive. A lot of people fell for it.
- Givemebeats.com - The owner of the website, Mardix, told the producers on the website that he's filing a legal complaint against them, and that he's going to sell everybody's beat so he doesn't go to jail. This created a panic on the website. People wanted to remove their beats, but their account was locked, making them impossible to make any changes. But later on that day, a new version is released.
- Good-Tutorials Announcement of the 'new layout' is actually the two year old design
- GTAReview.com , popular Polish website about GTA told people that today Rockstar will give them some screenshots from GTA4 (PS3 Version).
- Hack a day is now completely autonomous and it now generates the posts automatically. The system is based on a large quantity of duct tape and a Linksys WRT54G beowulf cluster.
- How Stuff Works Has two articles, one on animated tattoos and one on hydro-ordnance.
- Iexbeta.com "announced" that one of its administrators, Taco Bell, had taken over the website and rebranded it as Taco Beta .
- iLounge adopts subscription model, and establishes hourly Q&A fee.
- informationleak the whole website was changed to 1337, to simulate a website defacement.
- IrishStrangler.com ran a prank about a woman who had cheated on her husband - the author of the site! Included some revealing photos. (Website contains nudity)
- irishtoothache.com members Skeltz and Glaze posted a new song for download called "Mic Night". It's description said it was a springtime jam about karaoke bars, but it was actually just them making fart noises with their mouths for 2 minutes.
- JoBlo.com ran a news story that contained a fake press release from Joss Whedon that announced he has cast Kate Beckinsale as Wonder Woman in his long-awaited live action adaptation of the character's exploits. The article contains several crude reasons as to why she was cast, not one of which because she was the most talented, but was more willing to "work overtime" for the role.
- Kotaku , Lifehacker , Consumerist and Gizmodo , all part of Gawker Media , dubbed April 1st "Z-day" where humanity has been affected by an onslaught of zombies. Each site is treating the subject according to their specific topic (i.e. Gizmodo features Zombie related gadgets, Lifehacker discusses how to be successful in the post zombie apocalypse world).
- LiveJournal has been taken over by pirate interns, who create their own LJ Island and declare rules, such as "all trolls must walk the plank". They are also holding a contest for best pirate icon.
- Locus magazine ran a fake story on Lucasfilms announcing a line of "adult" initiative to publish "all of the spare words" of prolific authors, e.g. Jay Lake who is "capable of writing between 45,000 and 75,000 words each day".
- lxer.com announces first release candidate for MyPostBirdSQL 2.0
- Macrumors.com created a page of fake Apple rumors, including iTunes changing to WMA, and Apple and Disney acquiring each other in a complicated takeover.
- Memento-Mori.com : Jared A. Sorensen (a game designer specializing in offbeat independent roleplaying games), claimed over the course of the last few weeks that his IP catalogue and company were under heavy fire from an undisclosed corporate entity. Then just before April Fools day, he posted that he was being forced to transfer owenership of his entire product catalogue and website to the aforementioned unnamed corporate entity. This hoax generated 11 pages of outpouring, anger, and support in the original RPG.net thread , a mention at the Forge in a post about legal information for publishers, heated debate on several mailing lists, and numerous entries on blogs across the role-playing game world. On the 31st, Sorensen's website went offline, and was replaced by a site for the "Nasrudin Institute". When the entire debacle was announced as an April Fool's Day joke, many fans who felt that they had been lied to in order to boost the sales of Sorensen's products turned on him in public forums . The moderators at rpg.net suspended John Wick (Sorensen's business partner and prank collaborator) and Sorensen's accounts until October 1, 2006.
- MINI put up a fake advertisement for the MINI SKINI, a MINI Cooper-like scooter.
- Popular torrent index site Mininova , based in Antarctica, reports the group was acquired by Google.
- MMM Commentaries , a site devoted to alternate DVD commentaries, made available an exclusive commentary for Raiders of the Lost Ark, with Arlen Spector, who was promoted as a key grip from the film.
- Moodle.org announces a migration sponsored by Microsoft, from PHP to .NET due platform growth requirements.
- Mugglenet and The Leaky Cauldron , both top websites for Harry Potter lovers, came together for the sole purpose of fooling their faithful fans by announcing a marriage between the sites' founders and a merger known as The Leaky Mug . Both marriage and merger, however, were doomed to fail, as can be seen in the LeakyMug news.
- NearlyFreeSpeech.NET announced its acquisition by the Macaroni and Cheese while building this company due to its low cost and concentrated cheesiness. Because of this deal, we'll now get the employee discount." The company also bowed to pressure from users to include photos on its staff About page .
- NeoThermic leaks the new phpBB3 Style to the public and is then "Banned" from phpBB.com.
- Newsforge has announced that Linus Torvalds and the OSDL have formed the world's first Open Source Dress for Success University (OSDSU).
- NME NME runs fake story about Blur reforming to create dirty rock album. "Foo Fighters are gonna wet their pants when they hear it."
- OpenOffice.org ran the headline "Microsoft Buys OpenOffice.org", with a story claiming that Bill Gates had personally bought the OpenOffice.org suite.
- Opera Software launches an online photo library called Opera Models , an alternative to the polished style of existing photo libraries. [http://opera.com/pressreleases/en/2006/04/01/].
- PatentBaristas.com announced that it had agreed to be acquired by Google Inc. for $1.3 billion in stock and Starbuck's coupons.
- Planet-Rugby.com, a British would include players from France and Italy , to take effect with the Lions' next scheduled tour to South Africa in 2009 .
- Pugs.nl announced that the website was confiscated by Peugeot , who wanted to register the shorter name for their car brand. Pugs.nl is actually a Pug forum.
- RMS announced his plan to rewrite emacs using Perl , because of its acronym: Perfect emacs rewriting language. (According to a later mail from RMS on said thread, the mail was forged.)
- ReturnToThePit posted that it was hacked by Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell. All concert photos had his face on them and a fake concert review from the Max Dinner was posted.
- Revolution Report , published an article claiming that the final name of Nintendo 's new console had been released. [http://www.revolutionreport.com/articles/read/373]
- Sands of War , a HL2 mod, announced that they had been hired by Blizzard to develop the next World of Warcraft extension called World of Sand.
- SciFiStorm.com reported on a United States House bill to revise the annual calendar with one called "The Shire Reckoning" calendar.
- SectionZ claims in an email to subscribers that due to a lawsuit, the underground electronic music website will go offline forever. A link in the email forwards users to a YTMND page stating it was an April Fools Joke.
- sellsius Sellsius Real Estate reported they had exclusive news that Donald Trump was going to build on the moon.
- BMW UK BMW announces the new "slow cameras gizmo".
- The '' Sonic CulT '' made an annoucement that they had found a long-lost Sonic X-Treme prototype ISO and were releasing it to the public. As it turns out, the ISO in the Torrent is nothing more than junk data mixed with Sonic Jam data. This prank fooled a great deal of the '' Sonic The Hedgehog '' community, infuriated countless others and has raised tentions between themselves and fellow game comunity" ASSEMblergames.com "
- Sony Online Entertainment introduced a new quest into Everquest 2 . The reward was the first Mythical item in the game world, boosting stats to godlike levels. Unfortunately, when it arrived, it turned out it was made for a giant, and too big to be worn.
- Sony Online Entertainment , after Quest for Antonia in 2005 (a competition to find a beautiful model to promote Everquest 2 as a real world representation of ingame character Antonia Bayle), announced A Quest for Lucan - an opportunity for someone to play the Overlord Lucan D'Lere, who looks 60 years old and is missing an eye.
- SpongyMedia getting shut down by Nickelodeon creating "nickTunes". Although there was a referral code box when it was changed to the prank page, the real code in Base64 said "April Fools You Little Sausage".
- SQL on Rails version 4.1 is released. The new version promises to revolutionize web development, it is a parody of open source web framework Ruby on Rails .
- StarTrekOnline.net reported the "announcement" of the identity of the 9th playable race in Perpetual Entertainment's upcoming MMO Star Trek Online. The site immediately swore its allegiance to Star Wars Galaxies, with a full main site redesign.
- StraightRazr had a link posted to 'The Most Beautiful Woman in the World!' only to show viewers a picture posted of a very hairy man.
- Subsim.com stuns naval enthusiasts with a triple punch of fake news: An announcement that the US Navy is naming their next sub the USS Princess Diana ; news that the Iranian government ordered 2000 copies of Dangerous Waters (an advanced naval simulator); and a fake first look at Silent Hunter 4 which suggests the tradional WWII subsim will be set in the year 2050.
- Tea Vui Huang posted an April Fool press release titled "Google Takes Over Global Teletext Operations From 46 Television Broadcasters"
- TeeVeePedia is a Wikipedia parody from TeeVee.org -- this is their 10th annual April Fool's Day site!
- Textfiles.com , claims to have merged with Google to form Toogle.
- Samuraiusher.com claimed to be shut down by Viacom for copyright infringement. It should be noted that in previous years, the web-comic has claimed to have been "Bought out" by Viacom.
- THCNET appears to have been shut down by the MPAA and German GVU.
- The Tool Page posted on March 31st that Tool would be having 'Listening Parties' in LA, New York, London and Australia at various venues at 11AM Local Time. The post claimed that a member from the band would host each party. On April 1st, the page was updated with 'reviews' of the listening parties. By the morning of the 2nd, it had been revealed that there were no parties, and it was all a hoax.
- The Touchstone Gadget (Attention Management Engine) crew announced that they were acquired by Google. "This deal will allow us to tap into Google's secret network of spies and assassins to ensure that we can gather intelligence on your interests, and kill people who waste your attention."
- Treehugger Blames Daylight Savings Time on the powerful solar energy and photovoltaics lobby.
- Tucker Max posted a fictitious story about himself having sex with a pig while being cheered on by one of his friends. Many http://tuckermax.com readers fell for the story. {Link without Title}
- TV.com reports ABC and FOX have joined forces for a novel form of synergization. The networks will feature Jack Bauer, the character played by Kiefer Sutherland in the Fox action series 24, in the ABC supernatural series Lost.
- Uknova The main page was changed to look like a BBC Article that reported the site (and others) had been taken down via a swoop against Bittorrent from the BBC.
- Vast.com launches a search engine that scours the net to find 185,000 valid credit card numbers and identity histories.
- VGRC.net announces that Microsoft intends to quit making the Xbox 360 Core System, and is forcing all Core System owners to buy the hard drive add-on.
- VideoLAN announces that the next Mac version of their popular VLC video player will only support Intel Macs.
- Weebls-Stuff , an online webcomic and flash video site featured a story about the creator being run over by a 4x4 and landing a stay in hospital.
- Whirlpool , an Australia n broadband news site, announced that Telstra will be rolling out its ADSL2+ service with useful bandwidth limited 2Mbit while "the remaining ADSL2+ bandwidth will be reserved for Telstra branded services such as Foxtel Digital via streaming set-top box, BigPond Movies, and an as-yet unnamed consumer VoIP product targeting consumers interested in a second phone line." {Link without Title} .
- when they are older. They also denied links to external sites, "for your own good".
- Wrensoft.com announces a search technology breakthrough known as Compression by Recursive Annulus Primes allowing the entire internet to be compressed on to a USB thumb drive.
- Yahoo.com showed a fake news video about the New York City subway banning talking on the trains and platforms.
- Yahoo! buys all the Web 2.0 companies in existence.
- --- Goobix.com has announced that it was acquired by Yahoo! as a Web 2.0 company, following their evil plan of dominating the "Web 2.0" Internet. [http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000276.html]
- Geeks.com Presenting the Amazing GeekThing All-in-One Cell phone, PC/PDA, MP3/Video Player/Recorder, Talking GPS, Universal Remote & More!
- HarryPotterFanFiction.com Spoofed the famous Harry Potter site, Mugglenet.com, taking the face of [http://www.mugglecom.net]. A newsy rumour site full of tabloid like stories.
- HEXUS.lifestyle unveiled a cracking new product - Egcellent Ideas' ring-pull eggs. These can be opened without spilling their contents or breaking the yolks.
- internetgeuren.nl (Dutch) tried to sell devices that claim to spread smell, or nice odours, defined by SML files attached to your website.
- IWOOT , a UK gadget site, offered for sale a tiny device that downloads your brain's memory to a 2GB USB Flash Drive.
- Medialoper posted an extensive review of the Prism Durosport 6000 reportedly the worst mp3 player ever created. The player features a number of technological innovations including disposable flash memory and a shuffle mode that deletes songs as they are played. The Prism DuroSport website includes even more product information and a complete history of the company behind this legendary device.
- KärntnerMonat announced new Version of Apple's iWeb. Just plug it on your USB-port and get free broadband-internet for lifetime. Plus: A CD-ROM containing the whole Internet .
- OAFEnet posted a review of Mattel 's Bizarro figure from the DC Superheroes line, claiming to have found the rumored (but actually non-existent) variant. The joke was only made apparent by reading the first letter of each paragraph.
- The online retailer "now shipping". {Link without Title} The banner said "click to order" but nothing happened as it was only a simple graphic. In the source code, under the banner, it said "What are you looking for? Go away. There is NO URL. Or is there? MUAHAHAHAHAHA". On the bottom of the page was a footnote saying "Stop reading this. Your life surely can't be so bad that you're reading this useless swill?"
- Anime News Network refrained from making gag articles, much to the disdain of website visitors; citing the possibility that any April Fools joke they would make could cause more harm than good [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=22951]
- GameDrift.com reported that Jack Thompson won a lawsuit against Take-Two Interactive. A lot of people fell for it.
- Mythic Entertainment (the makers of Dark Age of Camelot ) tip their hat to '' Monty Python And The Holy Grail ''. Instead of getting a horse to ride when you wish to travel the realms, you are now placed on the shoulders of a large person, who runs to your destination, while clapping coconuts together. Additionally, if you go to fight an epic monster like a dragon, or the ruler of the underworld, you may be underwhelmed at their size. On the servers dedicated to roleplaying, many of the NPCs have a manner of speech that is quite unpopular with the residents.
- NarniaMUCK , a text-based RPG based on the Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, spoofed various facets of popular culture by converting their medieval combat lists into a Quidditch pitch, an Iron Chef competition, and the set of American Idol .
- XSSFools.com created for April Fools 2006, this site takes advantage of XSS holes in popular newspaper websites and allows you to seemingly post fake news to real news sites.
- ran with near-constant fart noises inserted into the audio and Closed Captioning . The Stand Alone Complex episode with fart noises ran during the time slot normally reserved for Inuyasha . The second airing of Stand Alone Complex ran during its normal time and did not contain the "additions".
- Maya Karin of Channel V International announced during {Link without Title} -Rated Weekend that the channel had taken a change of direction; instead of music, there would be World News, followed by a round-table discussion on the Merits of Literary Fiction on Civic Consciousness, and then some classical music.
- On Newsround a BBC news program for children, presenter Jake Humphrey announced that David Beckham will not be playing in the 2006 World Cup as his parents are Scottish.
- Veronica , a Dutch TV station, said it would air Mission Impossible 3. It turned out to be a trailer.
- On 2-Ten FM in the United Kingdom, station claims that an elephant is causing traffic problems on the M4.
- The Edge radio station in New Zealand claimed that cellphones had been banned by New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark to people under 16.
- Heart 106.2 , in London , runs a "Time Tunnel" feature in the mornings, playing songs from the same year and inviting listeners to call in and guess the year. On April 1st, the DJ played songs from different years, causing confusion amongst listeners phoning in.
- The US public radio program '' All Things Considered '' on NPR broadcast a piece about the "Positive Opera Company" on Cape Cod . Its impresario wants to rewrite the world's great tragic operas in order to give them all a happy ending.
- On QMR.fm , James Freir started his show by pretending to be fellow presenter Adam Croft , with whom he has a long-running on-air 'rivalry'.
- On Radio Sport in New Zealand, show host Phil Gifford and Doug Golightly claimed that rugby league star Stacey Jones was going to play rugby union for Northland upon the expiry of his French rugby league contract. They added that he had also received a special dispensation from Les Catalans to join the Auckland Blues squad for the last six matches of the Super 14 season. This was perpetuated by Jones' close friend Peter Leitch appearing on the show 'furious' about his personal conversation with the hosts being put on air.
- On Triple J Radio in Australia , morning hosts were claiming that, to celebrate 'Urban month' the station was going to be changing for the entire months play list to only feature Hip Hop , much to the complaint of many listeners calling in. Triple J played non-stop hip hop til 12 noon and had many promo's already set up to play for the up coming month, enforcing the jokes credibility.
- On March 29th, 2006 95.5 WBRU , an Alternative Rock station in Providence, RI announced that they were being bought out, and would cease operations by 5 PM on Friday, March 31st. Soon after WBRU went off the air, Buddy FM , a parody of the Jack FM radio format, began broadcasting random pop and techno music along with occasional pre-recorded station bumps until a mock takeover was staged by WBRU DJs at 12:16 PM on April 1st. The prank continued in some form until roughly 4:09 PM, April 1st.
- Big Daddy 103.9 in Sudbury, Ontario ran commercials stating that the government of Ontario was switching to Double Daylight Savings Time in order to keep up with new American regulations.
- The '' Daily Pennsylvanian '' released an April Fools edition on April 4, 2006. Top stories include a claim that Penn President Amy Gutmann announced her resignation in favor of becoming Harvard president.
- The '' Daily Mail '' announced that the door at Number 10 Downing Street that had been black for 270 years had been painted red by Tony Blair
- '' The Economist '' claims that a company called GeneDupe, owned by a Paolo Fril, plans to genetically engineer pet Dragon s as well as Gryphons and various other mythological creatures. {Link without Title} . This story actually leaked out on March 31 2006, due to the need to release press releases on the day before publication. Five years ago, the Economist published a story about the same company allegedly genetically engineering fish with real gold in their skin.
- Electronic Gaming Monthly claimed that the new iGame, an Apple portable gaming device, is being released. It also claimed that iTunes was to have an iGame section for buying games for new device.
- '' PC Gameplay '' announced a movie based on the game Lord of the rings : The Battle for Middle-earth II to be directed by Uwe Boll [source PC gameplay edition April 2006 page 42.
- '' The Sun '' published an article about a penguin found on the River Thames . The article had a comment from Lil Faroop, and anagram of April fool.
- '' The Straits Times '' in Singapore published an article with the headline "Visitors going ape over Zoo's new primate exhibit", claiming that Singapore Zoo is set to extend its primate family with "a pair of the highly intelligent apes Simia mina - close relatives of gorillas and chimpanzees which have been documented communicating vocally, using tools and even walking upright". However, this is "stirring up a controversy" as the "Simia mina are in an enclosure not much bigger than the bedroom of an HDB flat, and will be kept there till April 31".
- The '' Taipei Times '' in Taiwan claims to have blown the cover off of a secret weapons program utilizing Betel Nut extract, employing "an aerosol-dispersal device to shower enemy positions with red betel-nut juice, leaving enemy personnel feeling slightly ill, while possessing them with an uncontrollable desire to sing at a KTV ." {Link without Title}
- The '' Jackson Hole Daily Newspaper '' in Wyoming ran a fake front page which claimed they were going to replace the tram, which is set to retire at the end of the year with bucking horses, a picture revealed these horses to appear as the same ponies that would be in a merry go round. The paper also had a couple other fake articles such as gun club reaches annual fundraising goal of 26,000 dollars, which is followed by an article stating that a club of masked men and woman robbed the Jackson Hole bank and stole 26,000 dollars.
- ''Buckeye Sports Bulletin'', a magazine dedicated to Ohio State University athletics, reported in its April 1, 2006, edition that Ohio Stadium was being expanded to 125,000 seats just five years after its most-recent expansion. The 25,000 new seats would make "The Horseshoe" the second-biggest football/soccer stadium in the world.
- 5 teenage girls, aged between 16-17, created 17 question mark boxes from as a joke. One box was noticed by a concerned citizen, who reported the "suspicious package" to local authorities. Haz-mat Units and a Bomb Squad were called out to investigate, but were cleared of not having anything dangerous in them. One of the pranksters turned herself in. Authorities plan to press criminal charges, which some have viewed as too harsh. {Link without Title}
Genuine events that had been interpreted as April Fool's Day hoaxes included:
- Bob Ross Inc. announces a Bob Ross video game here: [http://www.bobross.com/news.cfm][http://gonintendo.com/?p=1777]
- '''s private correspondence got lost and has been published on Limewire , a popular File-sharing program. Later it was revealed that this was not a hoax, but a real leak in the Dutch Ministry of Defence.
- Radio 538 awarded a select group of listeners who would come with their bags packed to a train station in Rotterdam, a major city in the Netherlands, with a weekend trip to a yet-to-be-revealed destination. Only three people showed up at the event.
- In the , but some may have heard on the 1st April )
- Several UK newspapers, including the , a Chilli Pepper grown in Dorset , England and claimed to be the world's hottest at 876,000 Scoville units.
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