In case anybody doesn't get the "joke", microsoft recently launched a contest where they "hid" something on the web, but you need IE8 to see it.

The former is idiotic, this is cool :) Good job, mozilla team!

Oh, neat!

And how typically Microsoft to engage in browser-specific marketing antics. If only whatever it was that they'd "hid" were the HTML 5.0 and CSS 3 standards.

If anyone is interested, here is a more detailed write-up about the crop circle. It was put together by a group of us a few years. If you zoom up really close, you can see us laying in the field nearby. Awesome to see it still getting used. :)

http://lug.oregonstate.edu/events/firefox/crop-circle

Now, has someone checked to see if $10K had been recently buried at that location?

I don't believe the site is run by mozilla

This reminds me of BMW's Checkmate on Audi's ad 1). Brilliant.

1) http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1675-santa-monica-bmws-ch...

And this in turn reminds me of the "Car of the Year" ads. See http://www.thetalentjungle.com/hospitality_blog/index.php/ar... (I don't think the Bentley one is real, though.).

First clue from the Twitter feed (@Tengrand_IE8):

"If you are already using IE8, please switch off the Compatibility Mode!"

This is going to be great. /sarcasm

and prior to that they posted the message "Follow me and join the IE8 Treaure Hunt!"

Can they not even spell Treasure correctly?

Hey, cool, 'home'. Well, a bit north, but close enough.

Here's the Google Maps link: http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&ie=UTF8&ll=45.12363,... zoomed in.

If you enable the "Develop" menu on the Safari 4 options you can change the user agent to IE8...

"But you'll never find it using boring Safari. (So get rid of it, or get lost.)"

....

"Ditch the web browser you're using. If you try to find the $10,000 with Safari, you'll get nowhere."

So, the MS contest is performing useragent analysis to generate custom pages based on your browser. If you use Firefox or Chrome, you get a customized jab at your of browser (e.g. "old Firefox" or "Tarnished Chrome".)

...but if you use Opera, they just call it "that browser."

I think that's the default for any user agent they don't recognize. For some reason I get "that browser" when I use Firefox on Ubuntu Jaunty.

There goes Microsoft's "commitment to web standards"...

well done

Apparently I'm dense; I don't get it.

Help plz.

Microsoft is a running a similar contest http://www.microsoft.com/australia/ie8/competition/

"You'll never find it using tarnished Chrome". Another pathetic marketing idea, one that really only Microsoft would think of.

That is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard.

Does microsoft need to houseclean THAT bad?

Really?

Does that really say "it's not as stupid as it sounds" on the bottom, there? hah!

Yeah, I misinterpreted that too. The subject they are intending is the idea of telling your friends, not the entire contest. If only they were that self-deprecating...

I always use Firefox, but today I went to the contest site with IE8 on Vista. The message said, "But you'll never find it using Windows Internet Explorer 7". MS couldn't even detect their own "best ever" browser. Very sad.

Changing the user agent in Firefox lets you view that page in IE8 mode. I wonder if the clue pages will do that to?

Curious: that link worked when you posted it. Now it's dead.

Emphasis on the zoom in.