Google Quiz
BackRub, Gmail, Android, YouTube and a doodle about Burning Man: 15 questions on the world's search giant.
Which web browser did Google launch in 2008?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Chrome
Google released Chrome for Windows in September 2008, introducing its minimalist interface and the sandboxed, one process per tab design that has since been copied across the industry.
The browser's open source foundation, Chromium, now also powers rival browsers including Microsoft Edge, Opera and Brave.
In 2015 Google reorganised itself under a new parent holding company with which name?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Alphabet
Larry Page announced Alphabet in August 2015 as a holding company that owns Google alongside its more experimental ventures, letting the core search business report separately from the moonshots.
Calico and Verily are real Alphabet subsidiaries, focused on ageing research and life sciences respectively.
Who became chief executive of Google in 2015?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Sundar Pichai
Sundar Pichai, who had previously led Chrome and then Android, was named Google's CEO when Alphabet was formed in 2015, and he added the Alphabet CEO role in December 2019.
Pichai joined Google in 2004 and his first big project was the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer.
Which California city is home to the Googleplex, Google's headquarters campus?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Mountain View
The Googleplex sits at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View. Google moved there in 2003 and bought the former Silicon Graphics campus outright in 2006 for about $319 million.
Cupertino is Apple's home and Menlo Park is Meta's, so the three giants are neighbours in Silicon Valley.
Which music video became the first YouTube video to pass one billion views, in December 2012?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Gangnam Style by Psy
Psy's Gangnam Style crossed one billion views on December 21, 2012, roughly five months after its release, and it famously forced YouTube to upgrade its view counter beyond a 32-bit limit.
Gangnam Style held the most viewed title until July 2017, when See You Again by Wiz Khalifa overtook it.
YouTube's three founders, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, had all previously worked at which company?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
PayPal
All three founders were early PayPal employees who left after eBay bought the payments company, and they registered the YouTube domain on February 14, 2005.
Karim uploaded the first ever YouTube video, Me at the zoo, in April 2005 and has remained the quietest of the trio.
What was the name of the Stanford research project that grew into Google?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
BackRub
Larry Page and Sergey Brin called their 1996 project BackRub because it analysed the web's back links to rank pages. They renamed it Google in 1997, playing on the number googol.
WebCrawler, Inktomi and Archie were all real early search tools, with Archie dating back to 1990.
In which year did Google hold its initial public offering?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
2004
Google floated on the Nasdaq on August 19, 2004 at $85 per share, using an unusual auction format and raising about $1.67 billion for the six-year-old company.
The IPO filing stated that Google planned to raise $2,718,281,828, a nod to the mathematical constant e.
How much free storage did Gmail offer when it launched in 2004?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
1 GB
Gmail debuted on April 1, 2004 with one gigabyte of free storage, hundreds of times more than rival webmail services, which led many people to assume the announcement was an April Fools' prank.
Paul Buchheit built Gmail under the code name Caribou, and Google staff used it internally before the public launch.
Who served as Google's chief executive from 2001 to 2011, between Larry Page's two spells in the job?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Eric Schmidt
Eric Schmidt, the former Novell CEO, was hired in August 2001 to bring management experience to the young company. He handed the CEO role back to Larry Page in April 2011.
Schmidt stayed on as executive chairman until 2015 and remained on the Alphabet board until 2019.
Who co-founded Android Inc., the startup that Google bought in 2005?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Andy Rubin
Andy Rubin founded Android Inc. in Palo Alto in October 2003 with Chris White, later joined by Rich Miner and Nick Sears. Google bought the company in July 2005 for at least $50 million.
The first Android phone, the HTC Dream, sold in the United States as the T-Mobile G1 from October 2008.
Which crowdsourced traffic and navigation app did Google buy in 2013?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Waze
Google bought the Israeli startup Waze in June 2013 in a deal reported at around a billion dollars, beating interest from Facebook and Apple to secure its real time, driver reported traffic data.
Waze still runs as a separate app, and its community of volunteer map editors now numbers in the hundreds of thousands.
Which artificial intelligence company, founded in London in 2010, did Google buy in January 2014?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
DeepMind
Google confirmed its purchase of DeepMind on January 26, 2014 for a reported $400 million to $650 million. The lab later built AlphaGo and AlphaFold and now anchors Google's AI research.
DeepMind was founded by Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman, and Hassabis shared a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024.
Which Android release, in 2009, was the first to carry a public dessert codename?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Cupcake
Android 1.5 Cupcake, released in April 2009, was the first version officially named after a dessert. Android 1.0 and 1.1 shipped without public codenames, and the sweet tradition ran until Pie in 2018.
Donut, Eclair and Froyo followed in that order, because Google chose each new dessert name alphabetically.
The first Google Doodle, in August 1998, told users the founders were away at which event?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Burning Man
On August 30, 1998, Page and Brin placed a stick figure behind the second o of the logo to show they were at Burning Man in Nevada, so users would know why nobody was fixing the servers if they crashed.
Google now has a dedicated team of doodlers and has published thousands of doodles, including playable games.
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All Technology quizzes →About the Google Quiz
Google started life in 1996 as a Stanford research project called BackRub, and its very first doodle was an out of office note telling users the founders had gone to Burning Man. When Gmail arrived on April 1, 2004 with a full gigabyte of storage, plenty of people assumed it was a joke.
These 15 questions cover the products you use every day, the history behind them and the acquisitions that built the empire, from Android and YouTube to Waze and DeepMind. Most of it is gettable for anyone who has lived online since the 2000s, with a few deeper cuts to separate casual searchers from true Googlers.
You will find 15 multiple choice questions here, each with four options. Difficulty: Medium. Most people finish in about 6 minutes, and every answer comes with a short explanation and one extra fact worth keeping.
How to play
Read the question and pick one of the four answers. The correct answer is revealed straight away with a short explanation, then press Next question to keep going. At the end you get your score out of 15 and a full review of your round. Play again any time and the questions arrive in a fresh order. There is no timer and no account.
Good to know before you play
Is the Google Quiz hard?
It is a medium quiz. Questions on Chrome, Alphabet and YouTube are easy, while the Android codename, the first doodle and the BackRub project name will test real fans.
Does the quiz cover YouTube and Android?
Yes. Two questions are about YouTube and two are about Android, alongside Gmail, Chrome, Waze, DeepMind and Google's corporate history.
Are the answers explained?
Every question comes with an instant explanation and a bonus fact, so you learn the story behind each answer as you go.
Answer key: all 15 questions with explanations
- Which web browser did Google launch in 2008?
Chrome Google released Chrome for Windows in September 2008, introducing its minimalist interface and the sandboxed, one process per tab design that has since been copied across the industry. The browser's open source foundation, Chromium, now also powers rival browsers including Microsoft Edge, Opera and Brave. - In 2015 Google reorganised itself under a new parent holding company with which name?
Alphabet Larry Page announced Alphabet in August 2015 as a holding company that owns Google alongside its more experimental ventures, letting the core search business report separately from the moonshots. Calico and Verily are real Alphabet subsidiaries, focused on ageing research and life sciences respectively. - Who became chief executive of Google in 2015?
Sundar Pichai Sundar Pichai, who had previously led Chrome and then Android, was named Google's CEO when Alphabet was formed in 2015, and he added the Alphabet CEO role in December 2019. Pichai joined Google in 2004 and his first big project was the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer. - Which California city is home to the Googleplex, Google's headquarters campus?
Mountain View The Googleplex sits at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View. Google moved there in 2003 and bought the former Silicon Graphics campus outright in 2006 for about $319 million. Cupertino is Apple's home and Menlo Park is Meta's, so the three giants are neighbours in Silicon Valley. - Which music video became the first YouTube video to pass one billion views, in December 2012?
Gangnam Style by Psy Psy's Gangnam Style crossed one billion views on December 21, 2012, roughly five months after its release, and it famously forced YouTube to upgrade its view counter beyond a 32-bit limit. Gangnam Style held the most viewed title until July 2017, when See You Again by Wiz Khalifa overtook it. - YouTube's three founders, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, had all previously worked at which company?
PayPal All three founders were early PayPal employees who left after eBay bought the payments company, and they registered the YouTube domain on February 14, 2005. Karim uploaded the first ever YouTube video, Me at the zoo, in April 2005 and has remained the quietest of the trio. - What was the name of the Stanford research project that grew into Google?
BackRub Larry Page and Sergey Brin called their 1996 project BackRub because it analysed the web's back links to rank pages. They renamed it Google in 1997, playing on the number googol. WebCrawler, Inktomi and Archie were all real early search tools, with Archie dating back to 1990. - In which year did Google hold its initial public offering?
2004 Google floated on the Nasdaq on August 19, 2004 at $85 per share, using an unusual auction format and raising about $1.67 billion for the six-year-old company. The IPO filing stated that Google planned to raise $2,718,281,828, a nod to the mathematical constant e. - How much free storage did Gmail offer when it launched in 2004?
1 GB Gmail debuted on April 1, 2004 with one gigabyte of free storage, hundreds of times more than rival webmail services, which led many people to assume the announcement was an April Fools' prank. Paul Buchheit built Gmail under the code name Caribou, and Google staff used it internally before the public launch. - Who served as Google's chief executive from 2001 to 2011, between Larry Page's two spells in the job?
Eric Schmidt Eric Schmidt, the former Novell CEO, was hired in August 2001 to bring management experience to the young company. He handed the CEO role back to Larry Page in April 2011. Schmidt stayed on as executive chairman until 2015 and remained on the Alphabet board until 2019. - Who co-founded Android Inc., the startup that Google bought in 2005?
Andy Rubin Andy Rubin founded Android Inc. in Palo Alto in October 2003 with Chris White, later joined by Rich Miner and Nick Sears. Google bought the company in July 2005 for at least $50 million. The first Android phone, the HTC Dream, sold in the United States as the T-Mobile G1 from October 2008. - Which crowdsourced traffic and navigation app did Google buy in 2013?
Waze Google bought the Israeli startup Waze in June 2013 in a deal reported at around a billion dollars, beating interest from Facebook and Apple to secure its real time, driver reported traffic data. Waze still runs as a separate app, and its community of volunteer map editors now numbers in the hundreds of thousands. - Which artificial intelligence company, founded in London in 2010, did Google buy in January 2014?
DeepMind Google confirmed its purchase of DeepMind on January 26, 2014 for a reported $400 million to $650 million. The lab later built AlphaGo and AlphaFold and now anchors Google's AI research. DeepMind was founded by Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman, and Hassabis shared a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024. - Which Android release, in 2009, was the first to carry a public dessert codename?
Cupcake Android 1.5 Cupcake, released in April 2009, was the first version officially named after a dessert. Android 1.0 and 1.1 shipped without public codenames, and the sweet tradition ran until Pie in 2018. Donut, Eclair and Froyo followed in that order, because Google chose each new dessert name alphabetically. - The first Google Doodle, in August 1998, told users the founders were away at which event?
Burning Man On August 30, 1998, Page and Brin placed a stick figure behind the second o of the logo to show they were at Burning Man in Nevada, so users would know why nobody was fixing the servers if they crashed. Google now has a dedicated team of doodlers and has published thousands of doodles, including playable games.
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