::A Geek in Korea::

Internet Nerd Rant mode:

I’ve long told my wife that Korean websites need to start adopting well establish “standards” so that they can actually be functional for people. Every time I get locked out of a service just because it uses some non-conforming standard, I get annoyed. She’s not responsible for designing bad websites, but she doesn’t understand why her geeky husband gets all pissy about such a topic. I’m not sure Korean web designers understand the point of the Internet at times. It’s about access to information, not some “lets add crazy extensions” contest.

A dangerous mono-culture built around Internet Explorer and Active X plugins cut out anyone not willing to surf the “Microsoft” way. Basically, when Microsoft went around trying to split the web by designing proprietary systems that don’t play with others, Korea was one of the few countries that said, “That sounds great!”

Koreans adopted things early since the Internet boomed here, and often went with choices that have locked them into proprietary standards. There were very few considerations for “alternatives”, to put it politely. They’ve suffered as a result. I read that people couldn’t upgrade to Vista because Internet Explorer 7 broke how the major Korean portals were doing their business transactions.

Koreans have an increased rise of spyware and malware because the “target” victim clicks to allow any Active X popup they see. Whenever I use a public terminal, or a family member’s computer, the thing needs to be deloused from all the stuff running in the background most likely stealing passwords. This is a Windows problem, but the culture of “Everyone runs IE” certainly isn’t helping things.

The portal websites that most Koreans use break nearly every single design rule I learned studying the web in college. Granted, when I was learning the web, things weren’t great either, but damn, visit Daum, Naver, or G-Market and tell me these aren’t eyesores? (Heh, it’s almost as bad with Korean Yahoo and American Yahoo.)

It’s a cultural thing. I learned to use the web another way. Google minimalism and whatnot. If I see a page I can’t easily scan for information immediately, I’m gone.

Anyway, then thing that set me off on this topic was that when I was looking for the website for the local cinema, the Google result told me that the page in question would try to install spyware or malware. Without all the crazy extensions and plugins that Korean websites require, their website is barely functional. Would I have clicked some sort of popup to allow their stuff if I was on Windows? Possibly. Now even checking a movie on the web is actively dangerous to people’s machine.

Of course, I’m running Linux, and I’m on Firefox, so I’m not likely to be coming down with any of those sorts of virtual herpes that they probably would be installing on a Windows box. Still, the point remains. If people just learned proper web design, they wouldn’t need all that crazy crap.