Meh

Meh, I'm running the Windows 7 RC so it has IE 8 already, just combine it with the IE Tab extension for Firefox and voila!

I'd rather have a social disease

"So you'll have to endure Internet Explorer 8 and Twitter for less than $10,000. Not much of bribe, that."

Spot [bleep]ing on!

Dear Microsoft

Get stuffed.

No love,

Australia

smart ??

Now we know at least a few things:

A) ie8 is not using standards else you could use opera/ff as well

B) ie8 is prob. crap, else it would be chosen for its quality and not for a $$$ bribe.

C) what other "easter eggs" or "options" are hidden in ie8 ??

So ms pays/bribe you when you search+shop with blunt/live/whatever they call it today, but if you get too smart they cry foul-play

So what will happen if a bunch of smart guys "find" the treasure at the same time ??

i would LMAO

And one thing is for sure:

the ms pricing will go up to cover all those financial games.

i think you have a better chance in the lottery ...

<my warped blue striped coat with pinguins and dragons on it ...>

So, which is it

Is it such a piece of shit of a browser that they have tp pay you to use it.

Or is this just "advanced compensation" for when the innate vulns in IE cause you to be a victim of ID theft?

Oh, really?

So the voucher's location has not already been leaked by one of the MS team to a pal who'll split the prize later? Forgive my scepticism about *anything* concerning MS.

Give me the $10k first,

then I'll happily ditch Firefox and use IE8. I'll even install Windwoes!

Ten grand should just about compensate me for a week - maybe two - of pain.

User agent

This is dumber than you'd expect. It just checks the user agent of the browser; install user agent switcher in FF, and an agent for IE8, and you get the clues. Not that you'd want to bother...

http://i42.tinypic.com/jr381k.jpg

i think i b0rked it yay FF3 and useragent switcher

http://i42.tinypic.com/jr381k.jpg

Not just Firefox

I visited the site in Chrome and got this message instead:

"But you'll never find it using tarnished Chrome,

(So get rid of it, or get lost)."

Looks like microsoft just doesn't like anyone who doesn't use IE8.

Ahem

*cough* change the UA string in Firefox *cough*

Or is there some secret sauce that MS has included in IE8?

Found it

It was all in loose change down the back of Gates' sofa.

Yeah right.

Been the greedy, lazy sheep that us Austalians, sorry we are not "Australians" any more but we are "aussies" (groan) M$ are on a dead set winner here.

But why can't the competition be followed with another browser other than IE? Is not IE8 a "standards compliant" browser these days?

A Possible Reply

I suggest that the Mozilla people run their own advert, where they place one very simple clue that leads to a web page that only IE users can access. This web page will have a download that will wipe IE from your computer and replace it with Firefox.

The selling point can be that with Firefox on their PC instead of IE, the time and aggravation that Australian citizens will save over the next year will be worth over $100,000 as a nationwide total. Go worldwide and make the advertised savings as $millions.

Lets do it

get the money using firefox or anyother non IE browser

then we donate all the money to mozilla org or opera idk

and what will MS say after

"Ummm we got out smarted by opensource ppl that took our money and donated it to their devil appz" - billy gates

i declare this win

Unsure what you're getting at?

You story is very vague, "If you're the first Microsoft whore to find the dough, you get to keep it.", just a tad too subtle for me. I've not idea what your'e getting at!

I could use the money. Mozilla, Apple and Opera should run their own contests.

Mozilla, Apple and Opera should run their own contests.

Competition is what freedom of choice is all about.

Never mind the quality....

So now we know, IE8 doesn't comply with standards, and is bloated with MS-unique features. What other malware does it contain?

Are MS going to pay for web devs to be trained to deploy these "features" on sites? No, thought not.

Are we going to see a rise in the number of IE-only sites, just when web devs are abiding to W3 standards, and the number of browser-specific sites is diminishing?

I'll stick with my Linux/Firefox desktop, thankyou. MS can stick their cash where the sun don't shine.

The Penguin, the answer.

Extra bonus for finding in Firefox???

Do you get an extra bonus for finding the bounty in Firefox, Opera or even Lynx?

Brilliant marketing from Microsoft

This must be the best value for money in the history of marketing. In return for an investment of a paltry 10k dollars they got themselves (free !) wall-to-wall coverage in just about every computer magazine on the planet.

That kind of money won't even buy you a decent editorial or a cover photograph anymore. Perhaps you'd get a half page full-colour on page two, but that's it.

Learn from Microsoft people!

conditionals

my guess it's using microsoft conditionals, so changing the user agent probably won't help.

Yep, User-Agent does the trick from Firefox.

Just use the magic string "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)". You'll be in like Flint.

Another reason this is stupid

Cue the flood of people forwarding those stupid 'If you forward this email to X people Microsoft/Bill Gates will give you $10,000"

Ten grand, eh?

I will save that much over a few years just by using Linux instead of Microsoft's (and partner's) offerings.

Is this real?

Or a phishing scam? Or a joke? I can't actually tell :-(

Standards

So, I'm guessing that if you can't find the 10 grand using Firefox, then that 10 gee doesn't adhere to web standards...

HOLD ON

That's Ozzy dollars, which are about 3 to the pound. So you have to endure IE8 for about 3500 quid. (give or take the exchange rate)

It isn't worth having.

And you have to endure a social networking site for more than ten minutes at a time. Yes twitter might be okay, now and then in small doses, but some of us actually have lives, and jobs and the need to talk to a live person.