Very cool...but I like the one that is displayed if you view this site in IE.

I think it gets the point across...not to mention that his site requires a web standards compliant browser such as Firefox to see the awesome design that powers his site. I need to reinstall this to my site since I use a CSS nav bar that relies on web standards, and is not displayed properly in IE. I mentioned this to you in the email I sent you a while ago as well.

I think we shouldn't forget that no webmaster should annoy his visitors. That's why i don't use rakaz' version of the "No IE Information Bar". Some users don't care, some use IE on purpose but all of them are still visitors of your website. That's why i prefer the No IE Information Bar that Asa mentioned. But that's enough, because it's better to have IE-using visitors than having no visitors at all ;)

I brought the share of Firefox users on my webpage up to 25%, but primarely through talking to the users, convince them of the advantages of firefox.

I had a big firefox-graphic on my page for IE-users. I provided them with information how to get this graphic away. After 260000 pageviews and 5 clicks, that were from friends of mine (i KNOW that they clicked on the graphic), i removed it.

The visitors of my site are simply not interested. If I talk to them and install Firefox on their computers, they like & use it.

An advice like the no ie information bar works on websites with technical-interested visitors. for the average user, you need trustable people to tell them to use Firefox. ;)

Yeah, I totally agree with Sebastian.
Try not to annoy your IE visitors with something they don't want (sadly, in this case, Firefox).
I know this bar is too geeky. But hopefully one out of a hundred visitor would be "converted" to Firefox fan because of that.
Enjoy the bar! Why? Visit my URL ;-)

I experimented with earlier versions of the IE styled information bar, but I am not using it for a specific reason. The one I created is bigger and red, which fits much more with the fact that my website requires a standards compliant browser and as a result does not render properly at all in IE. In this case it functions as a glorified error message and it doesn't really matter if the bar might be annoying. It might even help them better understand the reason why the website they are visiting is all screwed up, because it is big, red and obnoxious.

In almost any other case I would agree. A smaller, more friendly message suggesting the better alternatives to IE is a far better way to promote Firefox.

I suggested this type of thing along with jesus_X on the forums a long time ago and we got bashed. The post is at http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=123391

I totally agree to not annoy your visitors, but I'd hate for them to not understand that my site is intended to look one way, when in fact they are seeing it in another way...and it looks like crap. It's simple CSS...nothing out of line, but IE doesn't display it properly, and I won't compromise a good design for the sake of IE. I have been a long time user of Firefox (since the firebird days), and stand behind it all the way!

I have decided to not re-install rakaz's version since it TOTALLY butchers the nav bar, and throws things all outta whack. I'll be installing the one Asa mentioned here instead. Simple and sweet.

Hmm...

A less troll'ish way to say this in case your visitors don't like you to push other browsers on them, might be to change the info bar text to "This web site is using features Internet Explorer doesn't support. Click here for more information". Instead of the semi-troll "IE is preventing you from having a better Internet experience". Don't assume they agree about that. Heck, they could even be using an IE "shell" like Maxthon by own choice.

@Rakaz
if you run a website where you can expect your visitors to use the latest browser, an error-message is appropriate. but i was talking about this kind of messages in connection with normal webpages, that are visited by normal users.
You can be glad, developing just for Firefox & co is so much easier...

@AdamStac
i work on the webpage mentioned above since about 10 months, and developing for the internet explorer has always been a pain... for example: i created a simple shadow-style for div-"container". two hours work and it worked. not much effort, easy to implement. a perfect sollution. than i realized that it didn't work at all with internet explorer. so i began to re-work it. after a week's time, it finally worked. still quite easy to implement, but not as easy as before. and well, i lost seven days, working eight hours a day, from my holiday... ;) but still, it was necessary to do the work. i had to do the work, because 75% of my visitors still use the internet explorer. back in summer, they owned 90% of my browser-statistics. they are the majority, and the webpage has to look perfect on the internet explorer...

@[ct]
very nice idea, but just for a small audience, because most people aren't interested in a secure browser. they want a easy-to-use browser. so we should try to create a information bar that indicates what the user could do better or easier with firefox, not what his actual browser does wrong.

Doesn't all this also mean that the IE information bar can essentially be spoofed? A whole new generation of misleading "security warnings" is born. :)

@Jonathan Dobres
Well, the infobar look-a-like used here is not completely identical. It is placed inside the inset page border. However, when I experimented with a similar infobar I could easily make it pixel-for-pixel identical by setting the border on the html element to none, include a div around the page contents and set a new border on it. So, yes, you can easily spoof the information bar and make it indisguishable from the browser chrome.

I still remember the warm feeling from visiting with a mozilla suite nightly ben's weblog, where I got the warning that I am suffering the web. I asked myself are they using a better rendering engine?? Do I work on the right project, if they have a better renderer? Such a bar/comment will only insult.

Hmm Asa's url no longer seems valid...is there an updated one?

Justin, the server was shutted down because electricity went out. It is back online now.