This is a modified version based off of Finn.no’s code to give Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) users the message to upgrade. I’ve translated it to english, changed the styling and added browser-options. Feel free to use and modify this as you please. Source: The original code and a message from Erlend Schei at FINN Labs (Norwegian)
Note: Wordpress automatically makes changes to the text when I hit save/publish/update so you’ll have to go to this page for the right source-code (thanks to @behe for the updated source with IE8. I’m sorry about the faults in the previous code I published. Wordpress insisted on converting my characters.
This code will look like this:
Did you know that your browser is out of date?
To get the best possible experience using our website we recommend that you upgrade your browser to a newer version. The current version is Internet Explorer 8. The upgrade is free. If you’re using a PC at work you should contact your IT administrator.
If you want to you may also try some other popular Internet browsers like Firefox, Opera, or Safari
Be sure to digg this article to spread the word outside of Norway. There’s also a Wiki made to keep track of the progress of spreading the IE6 message.
#1 by Fredrik Rødland on 19/02/2009 - 16:04
The script does not work as it is (at least not when viewed in Firefox on a mac)
The comment-tags should be:
instead of
and
#2 by Duncan Macdonald on 19/02/2009 - 16:07
YES!! Quite right my good man, I’m really hoping more designers and developers start taking a pro-active approach in discouraging IE6 use .
#3 by Vincent Hasselgård on 19/02/2009 - 17:10
@ Fredrik Rødland
But that’s the whole point of it. If you mean the example that’s not hidden by a conditional comment I’m a bit puzzled, because I use Firefox on a Mac myself and it’s there.
#4 by Sammy on 19/02/2009 - 17:51
doesn’t work
#5 by Erlend Oftedal on 19/02/2009 - 17:59
I had to perform some small fixes to make it work. Here is a working version:
http://erlend.oftedal.no/blog/ie6begone.txt
#6 by Norbert on 19/02/2009 - 18:02
Browser experience? Sounds like, “this programmer is too lazy”
I would say it clearer: “Welcome with your oldtimer browser Internet Explorer 6. In view of the fact that it is 7 years old and has lots of security issues, we congratulate you that it is still alive and working! However, as with junk cars, we would like to recommend you upgrade to a newer browser like …
… (list of browsers)”
#7 by Chris on 19/02/2009 - 18:10
Great idea, Vincent!
Noted that your example code has typographical quotes that will not work if you paste them directly in the website (or my browser did that) – anyhow I had to replace them by normal quotes.
And Wordpress also changed the two minus signs in one dash.
#8 by Sammy on 19/02/2009 - 18:18
here is the corrected version:
http://www.rgb-factory.de/ie6_sucks.htm
works with:
FF 3.0.6
google chrome 1.0.154.48
opera 9.63
internet explorer 7 and 6
Safari for windows 3.1.2
#9 by Vincent Hasselgård on 19/02/2009 - 18:40
Thanks, I’ve fixed it. I had to make a txt-file and upload it. Wordpress insists on converting the characters. I dunno if it’s the theme or the engine itself that does it.
#10 by Vincent Hasselgård on 19/02/2009 - 18:41
@ Sammy
Thanks. I’ve fixed the post by linking to a text-file. Wordpress insisted on converting the characters.
#11 by Vincent Hasselgård on 19/02/2009 - 18:42
@Norbert
That would be a great message to read, well, I wouldn’t get to read it, but it would be fun. Hehe.
#12 by Sammy on 19/02/2009 - 18:45
@ Vincent Hasselgård
there are still a few little mistakes:
you forgot to close the p tag at the end and you forgot to declare the a tags with the css classes.
just copy http://www.rgb-factory.de/ie6_sucks.txt
greetings from germany
#13 by Loci on 19/02/2009 - 18:55
Alternatively you can add the following two lines to your .htaccess file. This will redirect all MSIE version 6 or older to the URL in the second line.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_user_agent} MSIE\ [0-6]
RewriteRule .*$ http\:\/\/www\.firefox\.com\/ [R]
Greetings from Germany
Loci
#14 by Vincent Hasselgård on 19/02/2009 - 19:42
@ Loci
This is also a way to do it, but I think that may confuse some users and they might get angry or scared and just close it. I think it’s better to give them the message while still allowing the users to do what they wanted to do in the first place without forcing them to do an install of new software first. Some might open the links in a new window and download and then upgrade after they’re done doing what they wanted on the internet.
#15 by Loci on 19/02/2009 - 20:17
@ Vincent
That’s the reason I didn’t redirect directly to firefox.com but a subdomain where I placed a small HTML file which explains why I redirected the request and a link to firefox.com
I don’t know if it works with MSIE as I tested it with Konqueror: I loaded my site, changed the UserAgent to MSIE 5.5 and was (due to the immediate reload redirected to the intermediate page. Then I changed back and was redirected to the correct landing page.
Your code snippet does a soft cut while mine does a hard cut. I think it’s dependent on what’s your site policy and what you’re wanting to achieve with the hint.
#16 by Wojtek on 19/02/2009 - 20:18
Hi there!
I will Support this and here is my German Translation of the File.
http://www.golfcabrio.de/tmp/der_alte_internet_explorer_muss_weichen.txt
BR
#17 by Vincent Hasselgård on 19/02/2009 - 20:55
@ Wojtek
I added your code to the IE6-wiki: http://ie6.forteller.net/index.php?title=Main_Page#Tools
#18 by Chris on 19/02/2009 - 21:12
@ Vincent Hasselgård
Wordpress does this by itself. But the text file works fine. It seems you’re getting famous
#19 by Vincent Hasselgård on 19/02/2009 - 23:00
@ Chris
I didn’t really anticipate getting this much feedback, but it’s just great, it means that the world is ready to get rid of IE6
#20 by børge on 20/02/2009 - 04:31
Great! I will use this very soon on my website. But one thing: It’s “Firefox”, not “FireFox”!
#21 by børge on 20/02/2009 - 04:33
And the URL for Firefox is http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
#22 by Vincent Hasselgård on 20/02/2009 - 08:20
@ børge
I left the /en-US/ out on purpose so people would get the browser in the language they have. There’s a great chance someone living in russia who prefer to have russian language on their programs will visit an english website and if they do click the Firefox download button they should automatically get the choice to download russian language software. That’s why I did it
#23 by Oliver Schlöbe on 20/02/2009 - 10:29
Participated. Way to go!
#24 by Vincent Hasselgård on 20/02/2009 - 13:05
Thank you for your support
#25 by Loci on 20/02/2009 - 14:29
If you set the link to http://www.firefox.com you will be redirected to the Mozilla site with the correct language (depending on your preferred language setting in the browser).
#26 by børge on 20/02/2009 - 15:59
@ Vincent Hasselgård
Well, then you should do as @ Loci says. And the name…. 
Ah, yes. I didn’t think of that..!
#27 by Vincent Hasselgård on 20/02/2009 - 16:09
@børge
Thanks for all the feedback 
@Loci
Thanks Loci, I’ll update it later tonight or tomorrow morning. Right now I’m leaving for Øyas afternoonparty at by:Larm
#28 by Morten on 20/02/2009 - 20:38
We need to take this further and completely BLOCK the websites to IE6 users. If enough websites wasn’t even browsable, it would force the users to pester their IT departments to upgrade, so they can get some actual work done.
#29 by Vincent Hasselgård on 20/02/2009 - 23:30
@ Morten
That might be, but then again most large websites needs their users and don’t want to piss them off or make it harder for people than nessecary to use their site. One thing is to block IE6 users if their site won’t work on it, blocking users that could view your content in the setup they already have is a bad idea for commercial sites dependent on their visitors. They simply can’t risk driving their readers away. Of course, you’re more than welcome to block IE6-users from your own site(s)
#30 by Loci on 20/02/2009 - 23:50
@Morten: see my hint some comments above. I’ve implemented it on my site.
I only have a small site and don’t bother having less users but on a really huge site with many users which are relevant making money or on governmental sites where blocking a user would set false signs this would be the wrong way. In this case the code snippet is much more helpful although I think there will not be enough sites to make the users realize IE6 and older are simple too old and full of security flaws.
I had a time where I blocked IE-users completely, regardless of the version. But I can.
#31 by Michael on 21/02/2009 - 03:45
Thanks for kicking this off. I’ve done my humble site, using the NetRenderer to do the testing. I had no idea how bad IE 5.5 and 6 really are.
That’s one for Japan!
#32 by Vincent Hasselgård on 21/02/2009 - 03:57
@ Michael
Thanks for supporting.
Hooray! Go Japan!
#33 by CIAvash on 21/02/2009 - 15:05
hi
this is my persian/farsi translation with some changes:
http://potatozone.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/ie6-warning-fa.txt
#34 by falaque on 23/02/2009 - 09:31
hay,
coooooooool.
nice campaign. why people are using such an old age browser. this is stopping the development of web.
#35 by Vincent Hasselgård on 23/02/2009 - 14:03
@ CIAvash
Thanks for your contribution
#36 by Vincent Hasselgård on 23/02/2009 - 14:04
@ falaque
Let’s hope this campaign will stop IE6 once and for all!
Thanks for the support
#37 by delta on 23/02/2009 - 14:14
Now if we can just get rid of IE altogether, the web would be a better place.
#38 by Vincent Hasselgård on 23/02/2009 - 16:21
@delta
I agree with you on that, but unfortunately that’s just as likely as Microsoft developing a version of IE that’s standards-compliant. The only way I could see IE disapearing is if Microsoft is forced to bundle Windows with several browsers, giving users a choice when they first set up their computer or if Windows just stop developing IE, then people would eventually change browsers as Windows 8 or 9 or whatever gets out and is bundled with Opera, Safari, Firefox or Google Chrome. I actually see Opera for the most natural candidate when it comes to that, it’s already welldeveloped and they got a commercial corporation behind them. Google Chrome is in a way early stage and Google and Microsoft are competitors on other areas as well (search, mail ++). I guess I think Firefox is too community-based and doesn’t fit with Microsofts general policy.
#39 by David Hund on 27/02/2009 - 13:10
Great to see more people are trying to make a statement and help rid the world of this outdated and buggy browser.
Besides making a statement though, I feel it is necessary to help _inform_ people on why IE6 is a bad browser and _help_ them upgrade. This is exactly what http://www.browserupgrade.info tries to do. Please help people upgrade by pointing them to browserupgrade.info or similar sites!
#40 by Will Kemp on 28/02/2009 - 09:48
I think the basic idea is good, but implementing it in CSS is a bad idea! What about accessibility? if you hide the “your browser is out of date” message using css, will people who use screen readers get it anyway? Maybe some of them will – which isn’t good. (And it will show up on text-only browsers, like lynx and elinks, as well of course.)
I think it would be much better to not have the text there at all in a page that’s being displayed by any browser other than IE6.
There are two ways of doing this – probably the best way is to use server-side scripting. It’s trivial with php – surrounding the text with the following tags should work:
< ?php if ( stristr( $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] , “MSIE 6″ )) { ?>
[the text goes in here]
< ?php } ?>
(i don’t know if that will have got through the filters in this comment system or not…)
The other way to do it is with javascript – by removing the text from the DOM if the browser isn’t IE6. That’s relatively easy, too, but requires a little bit more code than doing it with php.
–
Well, those tags got through the comment filter, but the quote marks got mutilated! That code won’t work. Change the quote marks round ‘MSIE 6′ to normal double (or single) quotes.
Ooops! Sorry. I got the wrong end of the stick there! I just had a proper look at the code you’re suggesting (i only glanced at it previously, and misunderstood what i saw).
Please delete my above comments.
#41 by Peter Scholz on 12/03/2009 - 19:35
thanks, to the start this initiative
#42 by Micke Seid on 18/03/2009 - 11:13
Here’s a version with updated links to all the downloads; http://korta.nu/bbb2
#43 by behe on 01/04/2009 - 00:06
And here’s a version pushing IE8, now it’s been released.
http://twitter.com/behe/status/1425373790
#44 by Hungarian guy on 09/04/2009 - 21:08
http://gesign.xi.hu/ie6-warning-hun.txt
#45 by Hungarian guy on 09/04/2009 - 21:09
Thank you very much for your work!
Hungarian version: http://gesign.xi.hu/ie6-warning-hun.txt
#46 by Jules on 18/08/2009 - 17:14
I hope you don’t mind I sorta adapted the ‘lyrics’ on our site:
http://settuno.com
If you have a problem with it, please contact me.
#47 by Vincent Hasselgård on 29/09/2009 - 00:42
@ Jules
It’s meant to be used!
No problem
#48 by Roman on 23/11/2009 - 15:39
NO IE6 !!
#49 by Thomahawk on 06/03/2010 - 07:25
I just got a look in here – did not try your code yet. But I am surprised: How can your code probably work? You have no Javascript there, nothing but a bit of css and text. How doe this work?
#50 by Vincent Hasselgård on 16/03/2010 - 21:53
It works with conditional comments. IE6 is the only browser that will read the code between . Simple as that.