IE6 No More? Not in Korea

Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) was laid to rest on March 1, 2010 with a funeral held in Mountain View, California. Microsoft’s own engineers from its Internet Explorer team even sent flowers for the occasion.

A couple of weeks before the funeral, Youtube announced it would end support for IE6 starting March 13. Before that, a campaign named IE6 No More started, calling on Web developers to install code on their sites. The code would only show for visitors using IE6 and would ask those users to upgrade their browser.

With all of this momentum against IE6, one would think that IE6 will soon become a problem of the past but in Korea, this is far from true. Internet Explorer holds over a 95% market share in Korea and many estimates peg market share for IE6 to be over 50%. Why the popularity of Internet Explorer in Korea? The main reason is Active-X. Many Web sites in Korea require Active-X whether you want to do online banking, shop online or even browse a social network. This means users have no choice but to use Internet Explorer.

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Douglas Guen (권도균), Founder & Chairman of several companies including INICIS (a major payment gateway company in Korea). Almost all credit card transactions done over the Internet in Korea require Active-X and INICIS processes many of these transactions. According to Mr. Guen, INICIS created its payment gateway before SSL became a standard so they used Active-X for security purposes. Fast forward over 10 years and Active-X is still in use because most companies do not see the need to invest in a new system since almost everyone in Korea uses Internet Explorer. Another CEO at a local Internet firm told me he could not use his own Web site from his personal computer (Mac) due to Active-X and that changing the system would be costly.

So if Korean users need to use Internet Explorer, why IE6? I attribute this to the simple fact that IE6 is the default browser that comes with Windows XP. Windows XP is the most common operating system in use in Korea today so that would make IE6 the most common browser in Korea. I’ve found many users in Korea are clueless as to which browser they use. The simple cliche, “if it works, don’t fix it” applies here. Most Korean users are used to IE6 and see no reason to change. Everyday users do not relate to the myriad of problems developers face when trying to make a site IE6 compatible.

There is a small movement underway to wean users of IE6. I co-founded an IE6 No More Korea campaign last year and many sites have installed code asking IE6 users to upgrade their browser. Unfortunately, most people who have heard about the IE6 No More Korea campaign tend to be developers or early adopters who tend to stay apprised to issues like these. I suppose, a movement has to start somewhere but it will be a long time before we can truly say goodbye to IE6 in Korea.