For those who missed the recommendation in June of 2004
by CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team),
the US Government's computer security experts,
where they said STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER: 

cache of http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/713878

Now, throughout Europe[1], there is a large and rapidly-growing campaign
to get users to stop using IE6.
In the vanguard is Norway's largest eBay-like site, finn.no.
("FINN" translates as "FIND".) 
Google's translation of
http://labs.finn.no/blog/finn-anbefaler-ie6-brukere-a-oppgradere-sin-nettleser

To sum it up:
It's a pain in the butt for Web site builders
to support this horrible Horrible HORRIBLE browser
with its AWFUL non-compliance with Web standards
and pretty soon they're not going to make any effort to do that.

Don't be the last to get your FREE 21st-Century Web browser:
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all-older.html
NOTE:  This is Firefox 2; Firefox 3 will NOT work under Windows 98.[2]

These suites include email clients[3] (and other stuff) and are FREE as well:
http://www.seamonkey-project.org 
 (Firefox's big brother)
http://www.opera.com/download/index.dml?platform=windows


[1] ...and if you think American developers don't despise IE, read this: 
cache of http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/27/008227#26617861

[2] Well, not without this 
cache of http://x86.neostrada.pl/KernelEx

[3] ...which are MUCH more resistant to infection than Outlook Express.

Tip: Run a free scan for common Windows errors ad

re: Norwegian Websites Declare War On Internet Explorer 6 Sunday, February 22, 2009 at 7:17 am Posted by Arminius (334 messages posted) Norway is a relatively small place. Can't help but wonder whether some kind of back room deal has been cut between "Norway's largest eBay-like site, finn.no" and Opera Software (also Norwegian) to squeeze IE out. When I decided to try another browser a little over a year ago I decided to try Opera because it claimed to be the fastest browser at the time, and wasn't as resource hoggish as Firefox. I have come to like the tabs and the built in download manager. IE is spartan by comparison. Nevertheless there are times when I use IE because Opera isn't up to scratch. 1. Opera (the world's fastest browser) takes much longer to load the NBC news website than IE does, and Opera tends to lock up while the page is loading so I use IE for that one. 2. With Opera I wasn't able to register at the Sony corporate website to lodge my claim for the free Playstation 3 they owed me. The online form didn't work so I had to use IE for that. 3. Opera doesn't display .xml correctly. I use IE for those. I prefer to get the links and download the files manually. After reading that CERT report you linked to gewg, I got to thinking Microsoft might have been better off in the long term if the judgement in the 1998 antitrust case filed against them had forced Microsoft to separate (dis integrate in the literal meaning of the words) IE from Windows. It would have forced them to design a new, hopefully more secure browser from scratch. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Norwegian Websites Declare War On Internet Explorer 6 Sunday, February 22, 2009 at 12:38 pm Posted by gewg_ (4444 messages posted) Arminius wrote: |Norway is a relatively small place. | No argument there. There're just the nation with the big brass ones who is willing to take the initial PR hit to raise an important issue. The movement is spreading: cache of http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/02/norwegian-websi.html Professional Web developers have been wanting this for years. |Can't help but wonder whether some kind of back room deal has been cut |between "Norway's largest eBay-like site, finn.no" and Opera Software |(also Norwegian) to squeeze IE out. | A valid question. If, however, you heard from devs about how much time (and money) is put into ADDING support for the LEAST standard-compliant browser(s), it would quickly become apparent that the beef is valid. Some samples: cache of http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/01/145231#26291983 (Scroll up to #26291983 for another cogent item there.) http://origin.arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/ie8-super-standards-mode.media/breakdown.png http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?mode=nested&threshold=5&sid=914757&cid=24779515#24779515 (The *best* link was in my original post.) ..and with IE (as with so many M$ products) new versions aren't a graceful evolution with clean backwards-compatibility. cache of http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/19/2056228#26923297 |When I decided to try another browser a little over a year ago[,] |I decided to try Opera because it claimed to be the fastest browser at the time, |and wasn't as resource hoggish as Firefox. | Yeah. Gecko/Mozilla has historically had problems with memory consumption/leaks. FF3 made a giant leap in that regard (but dropped Win9x support). |I have come to like the tabs | Opera was a pioneer there. |and the built in download manager. | The Gecko/Mozilla "Download Manager" has always been a glaring weak point. A "download danager" that won't resume a broken download is misnamed. Luckily, there are many proper download managers available. ...and IE's "download manager" (not even accessible) is just a bad joke. |IE is spartan by comparison. | Yup. Let me correct myself here: IE6 was released in 2001, so that would actually make it (shamefully) from this century. |Nevertheless there are times when I use IE because Opera isn't up to scratch. | I bet you if you feed the URL of each of those pages into the WorldWide Web Consortium's HTML validator, http://validator.w3.org you will find that they are steaming piles of broken code. The other possibility is that clueless webmasters used M$-only constructs like (incredibly dangerous) ActiveX Controls. With Mac gaining ~2% of the market per year, that is just ignorant. With more and more people accessing the Web via their phones (running Symbian, Palm, Linux, Android, etc.) it's just plain dumb. |1. Opera (the world's fastest browser) |takes much longer to load the NBC news website than IE does, |and Opera tends to lock up while the page is loading so I use IE for that one. | Like I said, a steaming pile of a site. They can't even pass the pre-test: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.nbc.com/News_%26_Sports Don't blame the browser for not being able to render the crappy code of nincompoop developers who should have jobs that include asking "Do you want fries with that?". The Mozilla folks have pages about this kind of incompetence/cluelessness: cache of http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tech-evangelism |2. With Opera I wasn't able to register at the Sony corporate website |to lodge my claim for the free Playstation 3 they owed me. |The online form didn't work so I had to use IE for that. | I went to the archive of my favorite Mozilla newsgroup and did a search for "Sony". I didn't see anything about that site sucking. That's all the farther my interest goes. I despise Sony. |3. Opera doesn't display .xml correctly. I use IE for those. |I prefer to get the links and download the files manually. | If it's **any** XML, Gecko shines there. If it's *some* XML, again, run the URL thru the validator. Now try to render a page containing Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) by using IE. Now use IE to try to view a page that uses transparent GIFs. Neither is supported--even with the latest version of IE. |After reading that CERT report you linked to gewg, |I got to thinking Microsoft might have been better off in the long term |if the judgement in the 1998 antitrust case filed against them |had forced Microsoft to separate (dis integrate in the literal meaning of the words) |IE from Windows. | IE's stagnation for years and years hurt them and hurt the progress of the Web. Monoculture is BAD. cache of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Potato_Famine |It would have forced them to design a new, hopefully more secure browser |from scratch. | I don't know about that. M$ is infamous for their unwillingness to throw away code. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Norwegian Websites Declare War On Internet Explorer 6 Friday, March 6, 2009 at 4:36 pm Posted by dhm (1069 messages posted) "The Gecko/Mozilla 'Download Manager' has always been a glaring weak point. A 'download manager' that won't resume a broken download is misnamed. Luckily, there are many proper download managers available. ...and IE's 'download manager' (not even accessible) is just a bad joke." Fx3's download manager resumes. They haven't advertised that as well as they should. Like so many Mozilla features, I stumbled into it when I had to break a connection while something was coming thru. Then I dialed in again. I went to check on that. I was pleasantly surprised to find it had resumed the download. Of course that was on my Win2K partition. Well, anyway, I recently found out that I am in one of the 22 states which has $10/month DSL. I'm going to replace the phone lines with coax cable and switch over soon. Thanx for updating me on the Norwegians. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Norwegian Websites Declare War On Internet Explorer 6 Saturday, March 7, 2009 at 7:43 pm Posted by gewg_ (4444 messages posted) dhm wrote: |Fx3's download manager resumes. |They haven't advertised that as well as they should. |[...]I stumbled into it[...]Of course that was on my Win2K partition. Yeah. I haven't had an opportunity to encounter that. SeaMonkey hasn't quite caught up with the FF codebase yet. |Well, anyway, I recently found out |that I am in one of the 22 states which has $10/month DSL. |I'm going to replace the phone lines with coax cable and switch over soon. Huh-zah! ...of course, imagine what *could* have been: cache of http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html (Ever see the numbers e.g. South Koreans get for bandwidth--and the prices? It would make your blood boil.) |Thanx for updating me on the Norwegians. 8-) ...and in my favorite story of the new week, we have clueless state employees bad-mouthing the wrong browser. cache of http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/05/215209#27083183 Moral of the story: (#27084681) Don't torque off nerds--especially Web developers who daily have to work around the flaws of crappy M$ software. [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows 98 Discussion Forum