Great Computer Prank Ideas

This year, I’ve been working on my plans for April Fools’ Day for half a year! If you want to try them for next year’s April 1, here you go.

1. Reload the Graphics

I thought of my first prank when I learned that pressing Win-Ctrl-Shift-B reloads your computer’s graphics. I wrote a simple Python script that automatically presses these keys randomly.

import pyautogui
import time, random

while True:
    pyautogui.hotkey("ctrl", "win", "shift", "b")
    time.sleep(random.randrange(20, 30))
    i += 1

2. Fake Crash

I have a program on my computer that can simulate Windows crashes (BSODs). If you know someone who doesn’t have an antivirus installed, try sneaking it onto a USB drive and saying that “it’s an important update”. You can download the program on GitHub.

3. Blocking “ads”

Most ad blocker extensions let you customize the filters, so you can sneak onto someone’s unattended computer and block harmless websites. Here’s an example for Gmail on uBlock Origin for Microsoft Edge:

1. In the settings, go to “My filters”.
2. Enter mail.google.com into the textbox and click “Apply changes”.