OK, so the whole “upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 with lolcats and everything” viral video idea might’ve failed, but what else could get those young peeps to upgrade their browsers? Nickelback you say? Ha! Microsoft is way ahead of you with their Internet Explorer 8 Nickelback Edition, download it and get a free, unreleased track along with webisodes and what-not.

Yay. Nickelback.

Link: ie8-nickelback.com

A couple of the largest and most popular websites in Norway (like Finn.no and VG.no) grew tired of the extra work MSIE 6 causes and added a warning at the top of the page, urging IE 6-users to either upgrade the browser or switch to alternatives like Firefox, Opera, Safari or Google Chrome (see a list and examples here). The trend started to spread and the warning is now added to major websites in Sweden (like Aftonbladet.se), Malaysia and Australia.

Microsoft Sweden noticed the campaign and decided to stand behind it, encouraging all users to upgrade and just let 6.0 rest in peace.

Now, most companies still running 6.0 probably do it because of other reasons than just having BOFH admins not allowing upgrades (internal systems not compatible with newer versions and so on), but it’ll be interesting to see what a campaign like this can do considering the fact that every single Norwegian or Swedish 6.0-user probably will notice it.

It might just be the thing that gets the ball rolling and we’ll get rid of IE 6 once and for all.