Comments on: The Norwegian web changed in 48 hours – how is that possible?

By: nerdsillustrated.com » Blog Archive » How much of your web pages are actually visible to your users?

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:18:45 +0000

[...] This is the tool you’ll get, and can use on any page. It should work in most browsers. Tested on Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer 6 and 7. (As if I care about IE6 support:)). [...]

By: Din startside

Din startside — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:40:27 +0000

I really like the IE8, it´s closer to the FF regarding behaviour reading codes and output of a website. Let us all upgrade

By: ortlieb

ortlieb — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:29:53 +0000

this is a great history. I never heard about it. but anyway, I agree with mark above. To say it was succesfull, much more people should join the initiative and not only big companies

By: Dan Mihai Ile

Dan Mihai Ile — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:09:46 +0000

This is wonderful. It inspired me to create this project on google code: http://code.google.com/p/ie6-upgrade-warning/

I want to translate it to as many languages as possible so that any web developper could add it to the webpages created. The initial language is very polite and suggests the use of a newer browser.

By: larre

larre — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:41:50 +0000

Hello ZJ.
I think you point out a really important issue here. Why on earth should I as an end-user upgrade? The reasons to upgrade from this browser are actually several; From security issues (like secure), lack of support for standards and the huge amount of time and resources that is wasted trying to support it. You can read more about IE6 on Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IE6

By: ZJ

ZJ — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:45:44 +0000

BUT WHY THE F.CK DO YOU WANT US TO THROW AWAY IE6??? Because it is an old browser? Well, none of you guys are exactly newborn and the idea to upgrade regardless need or time is not new either, but you don’t seem to want yourselves upgraded or replaced.

I have read the article above and see no reason at all to do any upgrade, besides the fact that the browser is 9 years old. What you failed to mention is the fact that newer browser might be more demanding on system resources, on user skills etc. It’s the same “upgrade, upgrade, upgrade” mantra that everybody has been feeding us with – in order to sell new junk, more junk, other junk. To what avail?

And just in case somebody tries to tell me I know nothing about computers… I’ve been in the business for almost 35 years, I’ve seen hardware and software come and go – and believe me, “newer” is not always equivalent to “better”.

By: larre

larre — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 06:40:55 +0000

Hi Nicholas,
several of the other websites do promote Opera among others (like Firefox). That FINN is only showing a link to IE in the “box” has made some debate. Inside our article on Labs (that we link to in the box) we do promote all the big browsers. We think that the 10-12% of the people still running IE6 on home computers are not very technical. Getting them to upgrade is probably easier if they get one choice not 6. That is the rational behind it. Getting people to start using Opera (witch is a great great great browser) is not our goal in this case

We do not learn Swedish in school, but we do learn English that is correct. We also have to learn our very ancient language also. I think Norway is quit patriotic and when reading about the Norwegian history it is not very difficult to understand that. But that is another topic

By: Nicholas

Nicholas — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:15:12 +0000

I am disappointed that you guys are not promoting Opera more. It’s your own child. You should love it and cherish it. The stats on FINN say only 3.2% of Norwegians are using the browser from Norway.[1]

On a similar note of patriotism, why is it “sad” that Rune’s conversation was in Norwegian? If you think it would have been better if it was in English so that it could reach some hypothetical wider audience, then in your mind you are already on the slippery slope to losing your cultural identity.
Look what happened to the Cornish people and country after they decided speaking English to their children would be better than raising them in their own language. They’re all gone now! You guys have to learn Swedish and English at school. Sweden and England don’t reciprocate. Don’t lament important things being done in your language, it is critical to your own survival as a people.

[1] http://labs.finn.no/blog/nettleserstatistikken-finn-no-januar-2009

By: larre

larre — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:49:00 +0000

I do think that a lot of people using IE6 on their home computer does not have any clue that they have the ability to actually make an upgrade. I do not have any figures here. I’ve got some reactions from people trying to upgrade on very old computers that it was not a smart move Hopefully 50% of the home computers should be able to make an upgrade.

Last day we had a really great session on digi.no (tv) where Rune Zakariassen from Microsoft Norway talks about IE8 and also relates this to the ongoing campaign. It’s really sad that it’s in Norwegian!
The quirk mode may be a solution for some companies that has applications specially implemented for IE6 and that’s what he points out also. Microsoft will help companies in the transition with the upgrade and he also points out that all developers should stick to the standards for all new developments.

The time for this campaign should have been started when IE8 is ready in a couple of weeks, but that’s too late now. And also with the financial situation the companies will probably not throw money into big and expensive upgrades. So I think that it’s a very tricky situation.

By: Dave Woods

Dave Woods — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:32:10 +0000

Hi larre, Thanks for your response. Going on those statistics so far, do you think it’s probably fair to say that the problem with IE6 nowadays isn’t so much that people are unaware that they can upgrade but more the fact that they are physically unable to do so? And if that’s the case how do we propose a solution?

Maybe the use of the meta tag in IE8 could be a solution to the problem so that IE8 renders in non standards mode (or quirks mode) but can we really expect businesses to update their apps especially considering that they may not be built on template systems and would be harder than simply putting one line of code in their header include file?

Also, even if this was a possibility, would businesses trust Microsoft or would they be more likely to take the approach that their apps work fine in IE6 at the moment so is there any point in upgrading and risk breaking years worth of development?

It’s a tricky one which doesn’t seem to have an easy answer sadly