Getting to know the wonderful Chromium Community.
Alex Weijian Ho
Orlando, Florida, USA
Who are you? In 200 words or less tell us the most important things to know about you!
First and foremost, I am a commercial multi-engine pilot. I am also a C++ developer. I started coding a couple months ago while attending flight school. Since I had 3 to 4 days on average between flights per week, I was caught up in my studies. I had a lot of downtime. I self-studied Harvard CS50, bootcamps, and MIT courses online, and I found out I am very passionate about coding. Two months and a half ago, I made my first contribution in chromium with Mason Freed for handling international characters in domain name for form submissions. I added 80 lines of code across 7 files. My second contribution in chromium is changing about:blank page to respect dark mode. I added 80+ lines of code across 5 different files. I helped to investigate tens of thousands of test cases, identified flaky test cases in Skia Gold. I helped update test cases for AI feature in ChromeOS associated with MAHI initiative. I also helped android team identify test cases issue across multiple platforms. Thank you Nate Fisher and Rune Lillesveen for guiding me.
Your hobbies? Inside or outside of tech what are the things you like to do in your free time?
Outside of tech, I love to fly to uncontrolled small airports. It feels like exploring a new dungeon as if it is a video game. I also love to cook. I am able to make authentic lasagna and pasta dishes thanks to my Italian friends.
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
I am a first generation US immigrant from China. On the first day of school in USA, I got hit with the full English-only experience. It turns out I got so confused, and I couldn’t find the cafeteria. I ended up effectively skipping lunch that day. Throughout my struggle with ESL, I became inspired. From that time forward, I want to prove that someone like me who comes from nothing is able to succeed in America.
How did you get involved in Chromium?
Chromium caught my eye because it looks like an impressively challenging place to make a contribution. It has 36 million lines of code and 45 different coding languages. I have heard chRome was not built in a day, they were right it took 25 hours build time until I upgraded my machine. In order to build chrome in a day. I needed to upgrade my pc for the first time in my life. I installed ram and sata drive, and I fine-tuned the CPU temperature limit with Intel XTU for the first time. I configured a way to build on Windows OS, on Linux/Android OS, and on Mac
OS. Now I can confidently say I can build chrome in a day (8 hours). Thanks to the help of developer guidelines.
Tell us about the thing you’re most proud of and why?
I am mostly proud of my contribution of about:blank page to respect dark mode. The contribution is across all platforms with chromium, and it is very visible since I changed the background-color from white to nearly black. Reduced eye strain to all twitch streamers opening
new tab.
What is the best connection you’ve made through open source?
Neville George has been one of the most personable and interesting people I met around KubeCon and Redhat open shift conferences.
What is your #1 top tip for getting involved in the community?
I highly recommend visiting the Chromium Developer Guide.
What’s your favorite open source conference?
I love to venture out for events and conferences. In October 2025, I went to IBM TechXchange. I learnt open source products WatsonX, Open Mainframe, Qiskit, Z mainframe, Quantum computing lab etc. I was able to meet Joe Winchester and various open source enthusiasts.
Later I attended KubeCon, BazelCon, Redhat OpenShift and Cloud Native Rejeckts in Georgia in November. I learnt about ArgoCD, Spire/Spiffe and various other open source projects. So far, IBM techXchange has been my favorite.
Where can people find you?
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/alex-ho-27abb2375
Github: https://github.com/wjhe1016