The fastest internet speed in the world is held back by a browser

Beijing time on July 9 news, South Korea is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. Here, you can surf the web as you like, with almost no restrictions. Unless, you are using the wrong browser.

On Google Chrome, if you are a corporate customer of a large foreign bank in South Korea, you will not be able to make online business payments. If you’re using Apple Safari, you can’t apply for artist funding through the National Arts and Culture website. If you are the operator of a nursery, you cannot qualify to operate on the Ministry of Health and Welfare website through Mozilla’s Firefox browser.

However, in all of the above cases, you can use Microsoft’s IE or IE kernel browser to complete.

Microsoft has announced that it will shut down Internet Explorer completely on June 15, and will begin redirecting users to the updated Edge browser in the coming months. The announcement sparked nostalgia. Some users commemorate the internet’s bygone days in the form of jokes and memes.

But in Korea, IE has not become a network monument. While IE is closed, it is still used for a handful of critical banking and government-related tasks that are integral to many people’s lives.

Inseparable from IE

IE has a history of 27 years from launch to exit. South Korea’s allegiance to it carries a serious irony: a country known for its ultra-fast broadband and innovative devices is hampered by a buggy and insecure piece of software that most of the world has long abandoned.

South Korea’s internet speed leads the world. According to the “Speed ​​Test Global Index” released by Internet speed test website Ookla in 2020, South Korea’s average 5G Internet speed is 121 Mbps, which is 3.4 times the global average Internet speed of 35.96 Mbps, ranking first in the world.

Most Korean websites run on a variety of browsers, including Google’s Chrome, which accounts for about 54 percent of Internet usage in South Korea. Internet Explorer accounts for less than 1 percent, according to research firm Statcounter. However, after Microsoft announced the closure of IE, some important sites fought at the last minute to prepare for the days after IE.

In May, the South Korean branch of Britain’s Standard Chartered warned corporate customers that they would need to start using the Edge browser in “IE mode” to access its Straight2Bank internet banking platform. Meanwhile, multiple South Korean government websites have told users that some services could face disruption if they don’t switch to Edge.

That same month, South Korean internet giant Naver highlighted a feature of its whale browser: allowing access to websites that require the use of Internet Explorer. Kim Hyo, head of Naver’s whale browser team, revealed that the company originally added the option in 2016. He originally thought that when Microsoft shut down IE, it would no longer be needed.

However, as the days of IE shutting down drew closer, he realized that some Korean sites couldn’t switch to other browsers in time, so he kept the feature and changed its name to “IE Mode”. He said modernizing sites that catered to IE for decades was a “tremendous task” and that some sites “just missed deadlines.”

historical factors

South Korea’s reliance on Internet Explorer dates back to the 1990s. At the time, South Korea was a pioneer in using the Internet for banking and shopping. To protect online transactions, the government passed a law in 1999 requiring encrypted digital certificates for anything that previously required a signature.

Authenticating a person’s identity requires additional software, known as plug-ins, that connect to the browser. The Korean government authorized five companies to use Microsoft’s “ActiveX” plug-in to issue digital certificates, but this plug-in can only be used on IE.

At the time, using Microsoft’s plugin seemed like a logical choice. Microsoft’s Windows system dominated the PC market in the 1990s, and IE used its bundling with Windows to become the dominant browser. As major Korean websites require IE, other websites are starting to cater to Microsoft browsers, reinforcing its importance. According to a report released by Internet Trend, from 2004 to 2009, IE had a 99% market share in South Korea.

“We’re really the only option,” said James Kim, who led Microsoft’s South Korea operations from 2009 to 2015 and is now president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Seoul. He said Microsoft wasn’t trying to thwart competition, but many things “won’t work” without IE.

Kim keecchang, a law professor at Korea University in South Korea, believes that IE’s grip on South Korea in the early 2000s was so complete that most Koreans “couldn’t name other browsers.”

In 2002, when Professor Kim returned to South Korea after teaching abroad, he found that his computer running Linux and Firefox was completely useless. Linux is an open source alternative system designed to replace Windows. Every year, in order to file taxes on the government website, he would go to an Internet cafe and use IE to surf the Internet.

In 2007, Professor Kim filed a lawsuit against the Korea Institute of Financial Telecommunications and Clearing, one of five private companies approved by the government to issue digital certificates. He believes that the company is illegally discriminating against him by not allowing other browsers. About 80% of digital certificates in South Korea are issued by the Korea Institute of Financial Telecommunications and Clearing.

In the past three years, Professor Jin has experienced successive losses, appeals and defeats in the Supreme Court. But his lawsuit in court has drawn wider attention to the flaws in the South Korean system, especially after a 2009 cyberattack that used ActiveX to spread malware on South Koreans’ computers.

The era of smartphones brings change

With the advent of smartphones, an industry based on Apple and Google systems emerged spontaneously. Like many countries around the world, South Korea is beginning to reduce its reliance on Microsoft. In 2010, South Korea issued guidelines that government websites should be compatible with three different browsers. But changing South Korea’s internet plumbing system won’t be easy, especially with banks and credit card companies sticking to the existing system.

As public opinion shifts, users are outraged at the inconvenience of needing to use ActiveX for online shopping. Critics argue that the add-on falls short of its purpose because plug-ins make users less secure.

Microsoft launched Edge, a replacement for IE in 2015, that no longer supports ActiveX. In fact, Chrome became the number one browser in Korea three years ago.

In 2020, South Korea amended a 1999 law to revoke the requirement for digital certificates, a move that appears to end ActiveX and IE. That same year, Microsoft began removing support for IE in some of its online services. A year later, Microsoft announced plans to take IE out of history entirely.

While much of the world was joking about IE’s exit, a South Korean engineer marked the occasion in a more serious way.

Jung Ki-young, 39, is a software developer. He erected a tombstone for IE on the roof of his brother’s cafe in Gyeongju. Gyeongju is located on the southeastern coast of South Korea, about 170 miles from Seoul. For this, he spent $330. The tombstone bears IE’s signature “e” logo, along with an inscription: “It’s a great tool for downloading other browsers.”

He said he had also been disappointed with IE, but felt that the browser that brought so many Koreans to the web deserved a decent goodbye.

“It’s difficult and frustrating to use IE, but it also contributes,” Jung said. “I don’t feel good about retiring it with a ‘we don’t need you anymore’ attitude.”

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