This was something that confused me. South Korea is so technologically advanced and internet savvy, I couldn’t work out why every Korean I knew was using IE. Not only the fact that IE is acknowledged to be the worst browser, but also that Koreans seemed to have no variety when it came to browsers.
I realise why now, thanks to a friend who sent me this article. Internet Explorer becomes Korean election issue by Phil Muncaster.
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer market share may soon take a tumble in South Korea if presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo wins looming elections. The hot seat hopeful plans to abolish an anachronistic government crypto standard which has effectively locked users into Internet Explorer for over a decade.
At the tail end of the 1990s, the Korean government decided in its wisdom to develop a home-grown 128-bit SSL encryption standard to increase security around e-commerce.
SEED, as it was known, was then mandated for all online transactions.
The only problem with this new system was that it requires users to install Microsoft ActiveX plug-in to work and therefore needs Internet Explorer.
The result: a decade-long monopoly for IE as banking, shopping and other transactional sites were optimised specifically and exclusively for the Microsoft browser.
Read the rest of the article.
Now it makes sense! Koreans have been forced into using IE and because of that, many do not know that there are much better browsers to use when they are outside of Korea. Which is why many Koreans will still use IE even when in places like Australia, because they just haven’t thought about using a different one.
Well you learn something new every day.
(By the way, the first panel in the comic is a lie. Korean boys in internet cafes in Korea never look at me. While I might get stared at a lot walking on the streets, inside the hazy, smokey internet cafes no one even notices the tall blonde Caucasian woman cursing at IE, because they are so focused on gaming).
Oh gamers and your bad language…
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