page_title: OS-tan
section_title: Supporting characters
hierarchical_section_title: OS-tan / Original OS-tans / Supporting characters
caption_attribution_description: Opera-tan
context_page_description: The OS-tan is an Internet meme that originated within the Japanese Futaba Channel. The OS-tan are the moe anthropomorphism/personification of several operating systems by heterogeneous amateur Japanese artists. The OS-tan are typically depicted as women, with the OS-tan representative of Microsoft Windows operating systems usually depicted as sisters of varying ages. The -tan element in the term is a hypocoristic suffix from Japanese.
  Though initially appearing only in fan work, the OS-tan proved popular enough that Microsoft branches in Singapore and Taiwan used the OS-tan concept as the basis for ad campaigns for Internet Explorer and Microsoft Silverlight, respectively.
context_section_description: Because of heavy associations between operating systems and their supporting programs, such as anti-virus clients and Web browsers, many supporting characters have been created to personify the idiosyncrasies of these applications. Some examples are:
  Amazon Kindle: Kindle-kun
  Chromium: Chrome-tan
  DOS: DOS-tan
  Internet Explorer/Microsoft Edge: Inori Aizawa (IE-tan)
  McAfee: Miss McAfee
  Mozilla Firefox: Firefox-tan;  Foxkeh
  Norton Utilities: Dr. Norton
  Opera: Opera-tan
  Silverlight: Hikaru Aizawa
  Microsoft Azure: Claudia Madobe
caption: Opera-tan, the personification of Opera
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