Active X-tremely Annoying

You'll recall my last tirade against the use of Active X and the outdated use of Public Certificates in online security here in Korea where The Korea Times said

Intelligent smartphones may end up rendered [sic] retarded by Korea's crusty Internet regime.

Brian points to a recent piece in the JoongAng that discusses some similar points. In particular the stifling of banking and transaction applications on smartphones that, Because of FSS rulings require the same standards as desktop computing to be legal.

Forgive me - I'm not as smart as I claim to be - but can you even put Active X on a Windows mobile handset?

Either way, as both Brian and the JoongAng point out the situation has left Korea's desktop internet moribund, mired in a piss poor browser (Internet Explorer(IE) 6) relying on outdated means for online security (Public certificate) that is produced through poorly coded and ultimately dangerous Active X controls.

Thankfully all of this is starting to get some backlash and Brian points to another [Korean Language] JoongAng headline: 공인인증서에 막혀 한국선 스마트폰도 바보폰

Heehee! Babo Phones!

I've noted before that Korea isn't to blame for all that much for going in the direction it did. Back in the day when security of online transactions was just getting going in Korea, there was no choice in security so the Government enshrined the public certificate / Active X process in law with little thinking as to the future and SSL or secure socket layer connections that eventually became standard. Hence Microsoft's unique position monopoly in the market as illustrated in the JoonAng's graphic above.

Interesting how those numbers reflect visitors to Brian's and this site. You can have a look at Brian's stats in his post but for the last 24 hours people visiting The Bimbo have come here by way of the following top 5 browsers:

Gecko(Firefox)	35.26%
Chrome	11.38%
IE7	10.29%
IE8	8.7%
Safari	8.48%

You'll note the that the somewhat techiness of The Bimbo is reflected in the high percentage of Google Chrome Users - easily double its actual world wide share, and the friendliness of the Mac community in reading the Bimbo in their Safari Browsers.

IE6 doesn't rate a mention. Well actually it does at number 6 with just under 7.5% and I'd note operating System Data is pretty much in line with World data points / market share.

Now go read Brian's site on a PSP.