Norway Tries to Get IE6 Dumped

Whenever we look at browser stats from various market research firms, we're surprised by the number of Internet Explorer 6 users there still are. Apparently annoyed by all these users who seemingly still having joined the "tabbed" browser generation, a prominent Norwegian Web site is fostering a movement kick IE6 to the curb.

FINN.no, which calls itself Norway’s biggest online market place, has started a campaign against IE6. In their press release (.PDF) about the campaign, they emphasize it is not an anti-Microsoft campaign:

Nothing against Microsoft - This is not a campaign against Internet Explorer. We only want people to upgrade their web browser to a newer version. The problem with IE6 is that it does not quite follow the standard rules for how it should present the contents on a web page. It also has some security issues, says Erlend Schei, web developer at FINN.

Of course, even IE7 doesn't follow those standards to the letter. And when IE8, which purports to be standards-compliant (finally), it has to include a list of non-compliant sites and an IE7 emulation mode to keep sites from failing.

Further in the press release, FINN.no said they started it all with a suggestion to users to upgrade on Twitter, and then placed a suggestion on their home page, which was then followed by a large number of other Norwegian net media doing the same.

There's even a Facebook page dedicated to an "IE6 Warning Campaign." FINN means "find," apparently, so let's hope they "find" a solution to this soon. Perhaps something as simple (but rather draconian) as redirecting IE6 users to a page that will help them upgrade to IE7?

Naturally, that would go over like a lead balloon, but IE6 is approaching 8 years old; it's time to ditch it.