I’d like to reopen this blog, that’s been idle for some time now, and I’d like to start with following up on the huge Norwegian campaign that started last week.
The Norwegian answer to eBay, Finn.no, launched a text only visible to IE6 users asking them to upgrade their browsers. The background for this is the number of hours system developers spend on customising scripts for IE6 to get them to work in that browser as well, as it does not follow the same standard as other browsers. The number of Internet Explorer 6 users was also to large for them to ignore it, so they desided to start an action to get users over to newer browsers that follow the web standards. Soon many of the largest websites in Norway followed up, and it seem to have had some effect on the private market, but businesses that are relying on IE6 for their programs to work are a bit slower to upgrade. Pretty strange when you think about how unsecure that browser is.
Microsoft has also supported this campaign, and Steve Ballmer writes in a email to tu.no that:
Microsoft recommends end users that are browsing the web with Internet Explorer 6 to upgrade today to benefit from numerous improvements including security features and usability enhancements.
Interoperability is key to enabling developers to continue to create great user experiences on the web. Our commitment to the technical community continues with our significant investment in Internet Explorer 8.
We continue to believe in the importance of supporting the end users and encourage the technical community to work with us in securing a good transition for the users that today are using IE6.
Hope that helps
You can follow this campaign here, and I have also added the code to my site.
[...] the campaign to remove Internet Explorer 6 from computers worldwide started, there have been a lot of feedback saying that the users that [...]