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Norway tells IE6 users to shape up

Yesterday, one of Norway's biggest commercial sites, finn.no started issuing a warning to all IE6 users telling them to upgrade their browsers. Today, a host of big norwegian sites are doing the same. The campaign to end IE6 usage is on!

Finn.no

Finn.no is a huge website in Norway, providing all kinds of classified ads. Yesterday, through the magic of conditional comments, finn.no started telling their IE6 users:

Heads up: You're using an older version of Internet Explorer.

In order to get the most out of our website, you can get a free update of Internet Explorer. If you're using a work computer, you should contact your IT administrator.

Albeit a little bit dissapointed that Finn didn't offer their users to install Firefox, Opera or Safari, I was pretty damn stoked to see such a big site make an important effort for the well being of everyone working with the web in 2009.

vg.no

As if finn.no wasn't enough, Norways biggest newspaper, vg.no, followed suit shortly after. Hell, they even upped it a notch:

[What finn.no said]
Alternatives to IE: Firefox, Opera or Google Chrome

WOW! We're talking about a site that somewhere around 20% of the norwegian population visit every day. The potential impact is almost unthinkable.

And there were more

As soon as two of Norways biggest websites were up and warning people, more websites came rolling in (all of them major players):

...and the list keeps growing. Hell, even our swedish nabours are joining in on the fun.

I'm extremely happy to see such widespread interest in getting rid of the time consuming beast that is IE6. I'd be even more stoked if we went out and told people to get a real browser. When compared side to side, IE7 isn't really that much better a browser, atleast not from a developers view.

Even so, I can appreciate how telling IE users to start using Firefox or Opera goes beyond the courteous update nudge. Most companies don't want or need to position themselves in the realm of the browsers, and definately don't want a too close association with a given browser vendor. I still feel that the whole campaign would've made an even bigger impact had it been held back until IE8 was done. That way we could've nudged the IE7 users to upgrade too.

But really, this is not the time to complain, Norway is telling IE6 to fuck off. It's a great day!

Update: Some more screenshots

finn.no

aftenposten.no

start.no

morgenbladet.no

Gulesider.no

Published 18. February 2009 in browsers.

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