Application and apps for living in Korea

For Windows

This part is about little-known applications that fixes minor annoyances you may encounter as an expat in Korea. I’m pretty sure there’s more I didn’t know, if you do please leave a comment.

Blocks ads on Kakaotalk client

The ads on Kakaotalk for Windows can be a little overwhelming. You can apply this patch for download an application to hide those ads

Banking plugins

Internet Explorer is on its final breath… not in Korea! Similar to how they established a “Windows XP task force” after Microsoft stopped updates to the OS, I expect IE to live for a while longer on government and banking sites.

Installing the ActiveX those sites requires are one thing. You’ll find that what you had installed will slow down your computer or prevent you from accessing some website (yep). And uninstalling them one by one is a daunting task, sometimes even a Windows factory reset is faster.

The solution is “Hoax remover” (it’s an awkward name, but it works). This program will uninstall all those little ActiveXs for you, leaving you with a usable computer (at least until you need to install them again…)

Edit hangeul files

Universities love 한글, government love 한글, users don’t and they complain a lot that they have to fork out 40,000 won for a software that is inferior to Office.

Hancom decided that they had enough license money from the government so they released a public version of Hangeul that provides basic editing functionality so you can fill out forms and complete your homework. Though upon startup it will warn you not to use it for commercial purposes…

For Phones

List of apps that I find useful, not your typical list of map, food, talk apps that everyone already uses. Most will require a Korean number associated with your identity so get your ARC ready.

  • Toss use this to manage your bank account instead of the official bank apps. Especially useful if you have multiple accounts across multiple banks. Other functions: credit report, fingerprint fast payment, pay to account copied in clipboard…
  • Emergency ready app Don’t understand what the emergencies messages said because it’s in Korean? Turn of information notifications on your phone and install this app. It’s provide you with a translation of those messages
  • Annoyance report Your neighbor didn’t dispose of trash properly? Someone parked illegally blocking your way? Some public facility is broken? You can report those to the government and get a response in 1-2 days with this app

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *