South Korea is known as the world's most wired country, with over 90% of the country equipped with broadband connections. However, while the hardware and speed are incredible, the software has a lot of catching up to do. When I say that this country's software usage is decades old, I mean it almost literally.
An article in the Korea Times today outlined the shortcomings of this country's technology. While the internet speeds here are tops in the world, 99% of the population still uses Internet Explorer as their web browser of choice. Not only that, but they're not using the current version (IE version 8) -- they are still using IE version 6, which was released around 2001. Yes, 2001. That's 8 years ago.
Why are they still using this outdated technology? It's because of ActiveX, a component that came in IE 6. As with the case so often with Internet Explorer, it turned out that ActiveX had some major security vulnerabilities. Despite this, many South Korean websites, such as banking websites, not only decided to continue to base their websites on ActiveX controls, but actually increased its usage over the years. The security problems got so bad that even Microsoft is trying to abandon ActiveX; when the mother of a software wants to abandon it so soon, you know that there are major problems with it.
There is also a dependency on Windows operating systems due to this issue -- the websites based on ActiveX also depend on Windows. That means those buying Apple products are at a serious disadvantage, which leads to Apple's failure to hold any significant market share in South Korea (along with high import fees, which are likely in this country -- just look at the automotive market). In addition, Windows Vista reduced support for ActiveX, leading many people in South Korea to continue using Windows XP.When I first arrived in this country and saw the technology, I was so surprised to see that most people were still using Windows XP. As much as I have an issue with Windows Vista, it was a shock to me that a country this technologically advanced is still using ancient software.
Above: An abandoned computer monitor back home at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, with the prophetic message next to it, reading, "Evolve for the future, today."ActiveX is so overused that it's preventing users from upgrading their browsers and operating systems. As a Mozilla Firefox user and fan of Apple products, I really hope the South Korean companies wake up and realize that if they want to catch up to the current online technology (such as CSS), they need to ditch ActiveX and allow for more browser and operating system diversity.
This reminds me of a situation at my school. I was having some connectivity issues with my computer, and a Korean teacher was looking at my computer trying to figure out if there was a program messing up something. He almost uninstalled Mozilla Firefox because he thought it was a virus! He was so surprised when I informed him that it was an internet browser, because he was not aware of another way to go on the internet besides Internet Explorer.
Another situation involves the computer in the English classroom. The computer was attacked by some nasty spyware and worms lately, and it appears to have originated from a security vulnerability caused by Internet Explorer usage. Yet, what happened when the computer was finally fixed? Yep, they continued to insist on relying on Internet Explorer and refusing to use Mozilla Firefox or other browsers. They don't seem to learn from their mistakes. The good news is that I've convinced the head English teacher to try to get school funding to get a Mac computer in the future for that classroom (primarily due to multimedia purposes).
Until the situation changes, I'll probably be one of the 10 Firefox-using people in South Korea within a 1-mile radius.
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