I.E. or nothing at all: web browser discrimination
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008Korea is very rude to Mozilla.
And I like me some Firefox. It’s come along way from the red-headed stepchild of Netscape Navigator (R.I.P.) but Korea still hasn’t caught the wave.
A reported 98.66% of the internet is viewed through the eyes of Internet Explorer in Korea. In fact to even view and print government or utility files online one must use I.E. due to the proprietary extension ActiveX.
Oh, and by the way, me and ActiveX got some history. We’re not cool. He stays away from me and I stay away from him.
But ActiveX is an integral part of typical South Korean web design. In fact, it’s mandatory by law for purchasing practically anything online.
For the longest time, individual Cyworld pages couldn’t even be viewed on Firefox (or any other browser for that matter - even those written off the IE shell like Maxthon). But now I can view most pages but can’t do some basic actions. Essentially, when I want to edit my Cyworld page, I switch over to IE. Gee thanks Korea. Where did you go astray?
In the dark ages of online computing (late 90s) online security was becoming an issue for American consumers, vendors, banks, and government officials. Essentially, Americans were still using very basic, low-complexity script to send and receive sensitive information over the internet. A new, and still in use (through countless modifications) high-bit form of encyption was born. The United States of America led the way in terms of internet security and there was much rejoicing.
Except in the Land of the Morning Calm.
Oh no, 빨리빨리 mode was set in full force and South Korea decided to take matters in their own hands. The Korean government developed a sort of plugin for Netscape and Internet Explorer users that gave temporary authenticity for select transactions. This plugin was clumsy, bulky, but most of all - exactly what was needed to safeguard online banking at the time. 1999 rolled around and Koreans were banking happily and relatively safely for the first time. Yea!
What say you? No longer are we in the late 90s? Surely the South Korean government has caught the Apple wave (a reported 10% of the market share in the U.S. and climbing - thanks Vista) by now? Linux has the capabilities of being faster, slimmer, and more efficient than any operating system Microsoft has released thus far. So surely Korea has led the way, like they did in 1998, right?
Well, no other country followed Korea’s lead and instead opted to wait until a more unified system (SSL) was created. A year after Korea’s security system was in place, worldwide online banking was using the model first developed in America leaving South Korea with their own little proprietary version of SSL. With the fallout of Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer came shipped with every new Microsoft-branded PC and guess who came along for the ride: ActiveX.
Yeah, as it turns out, that little leech of a software program really likes America and Korea’s way of doing business online - it can do both SSL and Korea’s system. With each new Microsoft operating system (like XP or Vista) comes that annoying box at the top of my browser. Well, not my browser, mind you. I live life an the safe side. It’s also the faster side. But let’s take a look at what’s going on with IE’s side.
ActiveX works like this essentially. With a click of your button (permission) it installs itself in your computer and performs a simple, isolated function with relative free reign over your computer. Sounds scary, right? Letting something take control? Well, the majority of applications that run ActiveX are harmless. Actually, many can be quite helpful. Some scan your system looking for viruses while others install a new program without stressing out a technology-challenged user. Unfortunately, a whole lotta garbage is also written using ActiveX and most parade around looking like something good for your computer when in actuality, it is tearing up your hard drive. Koreans are especially at risk due to the acute attackability of ActiveX.
Hence why I like alternative browsers like Opera, Firefox, and Chrome. Partly due to the fact that there are several security enhancements written specifically for applications such as Firefox, but also partly due to the majority of spyware, trojans, and viruses are written for a computer running Windows XP Home SP2 and using Internet Explorer 7.
In America, we can use just about any browser to do online banking (or any other function for that matter) with relative freedom. Unfortunately, Korea still demands a captive, IE monoculture. Curses! What is an aspiring computer geek to do?
Pout. and lots of it. Other than that, I’m stuck switching over when I want to do something meaningful on a Korean website. For that matter, there’s a whole nother issue of foreigners using their foreign IDs while online banking. In a nutshell? It ain’t happening.
Thoughts?
Posted by Matthew in How Koreans Do It |
November 11th, 2008 at 6:25 am
Yeah, IE… I’ve been half a mind to uninstall it, because it refuses to let go of some functions that I really want Firefox to have, but considering the frequency I visit Korean web pages, it really didn’t strike me as a good idea.
And I’ve been wondering what exactly Active X is. ^^
November 11th, 2008 at 7:10 am
Wow….
Matthew, excellent job digging into the history. I never knew the background behind the seemingly blind allegiance to IE.
Let’s not forget that this IE business also kicks us Apple users in the no-no place. It’s why I can’t fathom the iPhone descending from 북한산 anytime soon.
November 11th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I hate IE with a passion D:
I often have to switch to IE too when I want to do specific things on Korean websites. It’s rather inconvinient.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Korean websites take me out of my comfort zone, too.
Apple isn’t my favorite company for various purposes but it does fill a need that Linux has been offering for years - a simple, clean interface, low complexity of product choice, and cross-media support (iPhone, iPod, Macbook). Apple makes a decent product that would do well in Korea - but then again - lots of stuff would do well in Korea that aren’t there (like this guy).
I can empathize with the internet browser discrimination - but once I’m off a .kr site, man you better believe I’m back on the “IE is lame” bandwagon. I feels too good on varsity and I hate playing JV with Internet Explorer. I just switch sides for a play or two.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:50 am
What they have in mind is…
‘IE is the standard browser. Why? Most of people use it.’
I’ve ever met some IT people for my job and I found them thinking like this.
They totally have no idea what “the standard” means.
God bless Korea, the republic of MS!
November 12th, 2008 at 1:52 am
South Korea is really a showcase example of what an IT landscape should not look like: monoculture. I remember the remote day, when I read the news that the Korean government was working together with the Japanese and Chinese in order to build a common linux system, in order not to be dependent on somebody else (read: Microsoft and the US). But this project was dumped I guess manly because they saw that it was already too late to get out of the grasp of the MS monopoly.
The thing that makes me really sad, is that even the IT professionals don’t know anything else, so let only the common users! They don’t know what web 2.0 is, what really dynamic content means, they are still stuck in 1990 and will stay there for a long long time unless something really big happens. But given the interests (all those IT professionals who learnt only MS stuff - they don’t want to realize that much of what they’ve learnt has to be dumped), I doubt it will come anytime soon.
November 12th, 2008 at 1:52 am
Sorry, had a typo in the website link above.
November 12th, 2008 at 6:15 am
It’s important to note that SSL, TLS, and related high encryption technologies have been banned from export from the US until the late 1990’s. Only since then have encryption technologies like AES, 3DES, and RSA (all developed in the US) been able to be exported outside of the US. It was mainly the NSA that wanted the export restrictions.
I don’t fully understand why X.509 and PKI systems are used in conjunction with these controls. The nature of these standards is very secure in themselves. As such, there are clearly better ways of using more server-side technologies to secure information and fulfill the purpose of most of these ActiveX controls. It was never the intention of Microsoft or Korea for the proprietary nature of these controls to be used in the manner they are today. I do agree that they are mostly a waste of time, and X.509 standards alone can be used more efficiently in their place for secure transactions.
In my personal opinion, comparing Windows to Linux is comparing apples and oranges. They are very different systems used for very different purposes. There are numerous advantages and disadvantages to open-source software, and one of Microsoft’s biggest disadvantages for being closed-source is the quality of their APIs in terms of 3rd party development.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:10 am
Chris1, comparing Windows to Linux is not like you say. The disadvantages of Linux for the average Joe (gaming, multimedia to some extent only) don’t matter in government offices. The advantages however — openness of the system, no vendor lock-in, open formats (which don’t force the citizens to purchase a program in order to read the data) etc… etc… are priceless. The only reason why Korea stepped out of Linux was the vendor lock-in to windows and all other proprietary parts like ActiveX.
November 13th, 2008 at 7:50 am
Of course there are great advantages to “openness,” but that also means there is no one “standard” or “release” other than those put out by the original developers. This can mean that there is also not a standard to gauge knowledge of a specific system since it can be entirely custom and/or modified. This also means that support for open Linux systems is essentially limited to the communities that create/support them. If there’s a major system-down issue with a custom Linux system, only the people that know the parts of it can effectively support it. With closed source systems like Windows Server, it’s based on a never-changing code base (save for MS updates). As a result, it can be universally supported and be known to a wide range of audiences. On the other hand, if any security flaws are found in a closed-source system, you’re at the mercy of the developers to fix it (i.e. the VMWare debacle recently).
We could go on indefinitely, but I’m not saying one is better than the other. They are simply different systems for different purposes.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Hello 오민
I accidently visit your blog while surfing Google. Well.. I should say I’m fairly surprised that there are so many people who have great interest in my country like you.
For this topic.. I use Firefox now. You know.. It’s much faster, secure, etc. And of course it has lots of convenient add-ons too. As you mentioned almost all of Koreans use I.E. and even have no idea there are other web browsers rather than I.E.. BUT it’s “almost” not “all” or “100%” there’re still many Koreans who use Safari, Firefox or Google Chrome and sick of MS ActiveX. If you’re fairly good at Korean, I recommend you to visit Naver.com. (probably you already knew? It’s Korean No.1 web portal) Sometimes an article about MS or web browsers shows on Naver main page. If you click the article and look at the reply posts section then you would see like hundreds even thousands of complaints against MS and its products especially ActiveX. And there is a NGO institutes a suit against Korean banks to not to use ActiveX in their online banking system. Many Koreans are hoping that we could escape from MS regime
Ah, and for that iPhone, KTF is now trying to bring him into Korea. Well.. well.. of course there’re some problems like Netpy. (It’s a Korean standard mobile phone OS. All mobile phone in Korea have to use Netpy as operating system. And.. Steve Jobs doesn’t like that idea of course..) But it seems like the ministry would get rid of that Netpy anytime soon. So, I think when the foreign exchange rate get stable and Netpy thing tossed away, iPhone can have a seat behind display window. Maybe.. around year 2009.
Farewell everyone
Thank you for your concern about Korea
And I’ll visit this bolg from time to time to have a little conversation with you all
And!!
Please God bless all Korean Firefox users
December 5th, 2008 at 9:29 am
It isn’t just IE that is the problem - if you seriously use any Korean website, such as banking or even just the TV channels website, you’ll soon find 10s of little windows specific processes running on your PC. Macos and Linux are effectively useless there. It is probably one reason why the iPhone isnt in Korea yet.
It’s quite amazing because although Linux development is big in Korea, everyone simply excepts that you MUST use a PC to do anything.