98.66%!!!!

I couldn't let this one pass without at least uttering one expletive:

(TechnoKimchi via The Marmot)

Fucking Hell!

Above you see the breakdown of what web browsers are used in Korea. (Interesting to see Chrome streak ahead of Safari in less than a month).

This is the kind of enabling that lets the current situation of Active X laden websites (banking, government, shopping etc) persist.

That and the fact that said Active X controls are actually mandated by law to do online transactions. (And thus by extension both Internet Explorer and Windows.)

Thus I lay a challenge for those readers on The Peninsula:

I'm gonna call it the "Firefox: Tell a Korean" Challenge. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get one Korean person you know to install Firefox on their computer and then use it for a day, doing their normal day - to - day "tubes" surfing.

And watch them suffer.

Bonus points to any readers who can actually provide video of their Korean friends stuck in the endless loop of error messages when trying to buy something off G Market.

By doing so I hope that a) Your Korean friend will be overcome with joy at the ease of use and technical advantage of using Mozilla's browser and b) they will be so put off by the rediculous use of Active X in every aspect of the Korean Internet that they will feel compelled to right to the KCC (here's their website. Funnily enough it doesn't render properly in Firefox), their local representative and move their banking to the Korea Exchange Bank that, believe it or not, has some semblence of un-Microsoft related Internet Banking.

Then get your friend to tell one of their friends.

I'm serious.

I've had enough.

Really we only need about the population of Seoul (What's that...? about 20% of the total population) to start kicking up a fuss and then you could say goodbye to Active X.

Another thing you could do is write to Samsung, LG and Averatec and ask them to install Firefox on their computers before sale.

Or late at night you could install Firefox (and uninstall IE) on all the computers at your school / place of employment.

Seriously, all you need to do is tell one person. There'll be little candle holding Firefox characters outside City Hall before you know it!

Comments

[lao-ocean-girl]

I understand what you mean. I had to install Internet Explorer today just to use the Seoul bus guide.

http://bus.congnamul.com/SeoulRouteWebApp/view_english/map.jsp

My browser of choice is Firefox, but I'm also trying out Chrome this week.

[Roger Wellor]

This partially explains why Korea sites are so sucky. They don't seem to have got the word that Firefox now controls something like 20% of web-browsing in the "outside" world. Korea will never be a "hub" of anything if it automatically rules a fifth of its potential customers/friends/visitors out.

[We've Got Seoul]

OMG, I use a MAC here and constantly slam my head against the desk in frustration at how difficult/inconvenient the internet sites are to use is in this country.

[roger wellor]

Stafford,

Do you have a good reference on that ActiveX thing - that it is required for transactions? This would be a useful reference for a paper I am writing.

Roger..