Today something amazing happened on the Norwegian interwebs. Finn.no, Norway’s largest classifieds-site, is displaying a tip on their homepage to all IE6 users, encouraging them to upgrade their browser. Not only so, but they have initiated a campaign, prompting several of the most visited Norwegian sites to follow suit. This all started within 140 characters, when Erlend Schei, web-developer for Finn.no challenged everyone in control of mayor Norwegian websites.
To everyone with control of mayor Norwegian sites: What about a spring cleaning to get rid of IE6? One week of encouragement on our homepages?
This has been followed up by VG.no , Start.no, TU.no and very soon right now (thanks @brumle) 50+ local newspapers all over Norway through A-pressen Interaktiv (API). While Finn and TU only links to IE7, which frankly isn’t that much of an improvement, VG points to Firefox, Opera, and Chrome, and Start throws Safari in the mix as well.
Homepage of finn.no, 18th of January 2009.
The warning/tip will only be displayed for a week, but this is a huge breakthrough seen from a front-end developers standpoint. It isn’t the first time someone is targeting IE6 with warnings, but it’s never been done on sites reaching such a large non-webby audience. This time it’s reaching those who really need to made aware of it: the end-user. This is a golden opportunity for mom & pop to learn that The Internet is not equivalent to the The Blue E.
The browser stats for these sites puts IE6 in the 10 – 24% ballpark, with the peak Monday mornings. Aside from demonstrating people’s work commitments at the start of the week, it proves that your mama is better than your IT-manager. There will always be those hiding behind politics, but seriously, who relies on software from 2001? To push the point further, Statoil, one of Norway’s largest companies has the dubious honor of providing a solid chunk of the IE6 visitors.
Luckily that will be a lot harder now that mainstream media is actually writing about, and to top it off- doing something about it. It is a dream coming true. Imagine spending development time creating the best possible websites instead of being restrained by IE6.
Now, who will be the first to follow up outside of Norway?
Update: A fellow interwebber has been collecting screenshots of the sites contributing. Also, this post has been dugg! Please give a digg if you care.
Tags: IE623 Comments
23 responses so far ↓
Great followup!
I just want to make a remark about the link to IE7. We link to several browsers in our background editorial, but we did just IE7 in the warning because we believe it will be more effective to just say “Upgrade now, and do it here” instead of giving to many choices to people who don’t know what to do.
People who don’t know, usually avoid the entire decision.
Thanks for clarifying that. I must have missed the editorial among my 20+ open tabs.
Hopefully everyone will follow up with stats next week so we can see what the effect has been, and what impact linking to just IE7 or multiple browsers will have.
Looks like Sweden might be up to something:
http://mindpark.se/2009/02/18/heja-norge/
Fantastic! It’s working.
(And I can’t help smiling at the line “It’s sad to be second after Norway”. )
Added this to Digg – please vote :) http://digg.com/software/Norwegian_Internet_Explorer_6_spring_cleaning
@Inferno: Thanks for that! My very first Digg. Don’t mind if you keep it up.
[...] Norwegian blogger Eystein Mack Alnæs, who writes in plain old English at That Norwegian Guy, translates it to this: To everyone with control of mayor Norwegian sites: What about a spring cleaning to get [...]
With marketshare of IE6 already below 20% aren’t most IE6 users likely to be companies and organisations in which users have no control over which browser they use ?
Hmmmm, your page is very IE6 unfriendly to say the least ;-)
In IE6 you do not see a submit button for comments
@Rob: You’re right regarding organisations. Which is why it’s good that this campaign is getting so much visibility. It makes mainstream people able to put pressure on the people in charge of IT in their companies. CEO’s who have never heard of ‘browsers’ are now becoming aware that there are options, and will start questioning the IT department why they are using software that runs a threat to security.
And yes, there’s no submit button in IE6! I had no idea actually, had never checked. I guess I better do something about it. As much as I dislike IE6, I don’t like shutting out users.
[...] kind of cool aspect of the campaign is that it started on Twitter, where Erlend Schei, the guy in charge of Finn.no’s website suggested it and rapidly others [...]
Hi.
Great thing!
I’m from Germany.
I put an IE warning at my css-playgroundsite: http://dkdenz.de/
[...] Freuden ist da zu lesen, dass nun norwegische Webmaster aktiv Paroli zeigen. Angefangen von Hinweisen das der Nutzer mit einem veralteten Browser unterwegs ist bis hin [...]
[...] Ursprung hat die Aktion bei einem norwegischen Webmaster. Verwandte BeiträgeBrowser-Kompatibilität von Webseiten Dieser Artikel ist eher etwas für [...]
[...] a message on the Finn.no site about upgrading your browser version. This is how it started: http://thatnorwegianguy.com/norwegian-ie6-spring-cleaning/ List of Norwegian internet sites that followed Finn.no’s example. (all the [...]
Great writeup, your blog is up to more then 200 diggs now and surely going for the “main page” of digg ;)
I’ve got a suggestion for “upgrade from IE6″ banners which I think are more *neutral* for those a little bit more courageous then the average; http://ra-ajax.org/the-fair-upgrade-from-ie6-banner.blog
[...] (Anm: Dies ist eine Übersetzung der englischen Übersetzung) [...]
I’ve finally gotten around to put a warning this site as well. I decided to make it less neutral in both wording and colours than what is probably acceptable on a big news site. Hint: Comic Sans. Screenshot on Flickr.
[...] Kollegen dazu auf, es ihnen gleichzutun, und stellten einen Codeschnipsel bereit. Mit Erfolg, denn zahlreiche norwegische Nachrichtensites taten es ihnen [...]
[...] started when a few popular Norway websites showed banners to Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) browser users advising them to upgrade their web browser to the latest [...]
[...] fact one nation and many more is joining the cause to prevent further casualties. Some many users are just about to [...]
Hi guys, I’m also part of the stop IE6 movement.
Please leave some comments in my post to support the cause. http://www.cybervaldez.com/how-to-save-the-world/2009/
I did it. I put the Banner on my Businesswebsite. Every IE6 Surfer will be told to use an modern Browser. IE6 should die.