If you’ve come to this site I bet you have questions. And I have answers. So I’ll try to imagine what your questions are and answer them as best I can:

Who are you?

I’m Morten Rand-Hendriksen, the creative director of Pink & Yellow Media. I design web sites using the WordPress web publishing platform and although I grew up in Norway I currently live in Vancouver, Canada.

Are you employed or affiliated with Microsoft?

I am not employed by Microsoft nor do I act on their behalf. I run my own company and am my own master. If you read my blog, Design is Philosophy, you’ll see that I am in fact an ardent critic of both Microsoft and their products but rather than just spewing hatred and gall at them I do my best to provide constructive criticism, just like my mother taught me.

But you’re a Microsoft MVP!

That’s true. For my work with Microsoft Expression Web - most notably my book Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Expression Web 2 in 24 Hours - I was presented with a Microsoft MVP award (it’s an actual big heavy glass award in case you’re wondering). The award was given to me because I spend a lot of time helping other users figure out how to use Expression Web. It is an award for past work and it comes with no strings attached - otherwise I would never have accepted it.

Why are you doing this?

Like I said before, I’m a web designer. And like pretty much all other web designers and developers I absolutely hate Internet Explorer 6 and everything it stands for. Because Internet Explorer 6 doesn’t work as it is supposed to I and others have spent countless hours of work rewriting, mangling and frankensteinizing otherwise clean code just to get things to work properly. This task is difficult and frustrating and made all the more infuriating because it is forced upon us by people who for one reason or another have yet to upgrade their browser.

Internet Explorer 6 was always a terrible browser with an endless list of problems, errors and bizarre idiosyncrasies that made it impossible to work with. Yet today, 3 years after Microsoft phased it out and replaced it with Internet Explorer 7 a large portion of web users are still using this outdated piece of crap (yes, that’s what I said: Crap!).

In 2008 I decided that enough is enough: I am no longer willing to waste time destroying perfect code just to make it work properly in an ancient browser. As a result visitors to many of the sites I design will not get the full experience and in some cases important features just don’t work. Many designers are so afraid of this that they willingly “dumb down” their sites just to be on the safe side. Well, I’ve had it with this browser which is why I am urging everyone who stumbles on this site to make sure that they upgrade from Internet Explorer 6 as soon as possible so we can rid the world of this code mangling abomination.

Did you come up with this on your own?

Claiming ownership of the movement to phase out Internet Explorer 6 would be a grave injustice to the many designers, developers and web aficionados who over the last several years have embarked on this journey before me. I just felt it was time I do something about it myself. Over the last couple of months I have had many conversations with other designers and developers who are as frustrated as me about having to design for IE6. And unfortunately for many of them they don’t have a choice. At least not until people stop using the browser and upgrade to the current model. So now I am taking an official stand and I hope everyone who runs a web site will stand up with me so we are no longer held back by outdated technology.

Is your code dangerous?

The code offered on this site is very basic and completely harmless. It is based on the code entered in almost every Norwegian newspaper as part of a campaign that just started there and consists of a simple browser-detecting Cascading Style Sheet comment followed by some basic style code and HTML markup. The output of the code will only be visible to visitors using Internet Explorer 6 or earlier models and will not in any way interfere with the markup, scripts or anything else that may be running on your site. I chose to use CSS browser detection to ensure that the code be as unintrusive and unobstructive as possible. All you have to do is paste it into your markup and it will appear. Nothing else will happen.

How are you earning money off this site?

I’m not. This site was created with the sole purpose of ridding the world of the Internet Explorer 6 browser. I have no ulterior motive, financial or otherwise.

Did Microsoft ask you to do this?

No, Microsoft has nothing to do with this site. If they want to create a campaign to get people to upgrade their browsers they can go right ahead. This site was created because I don’t think the process is happening fast enough.

Won’t upgrading my browser expose me to new security risks? I thought all Microsoft software was full of nasty bugs.

The reality is no browser is 100% safe or perfect. But Internet Explorer 6 is unusually unsafe and imperfect. Continuing to use this old and outdated browser puts your computer, your data and your privacy at risk unnecessarily. There is no valid reason to keep using Internet Explorer 6 and refusing to upgrade. But if for some reason you refuse to upgrade Internet Explorer I strongly urge you to stop using this browser all together and switch to a newer and safer alternative like Firefox or Opera.