SEOUL, June 17 (Reuters) – For Jung Ki-young, a South Korean software engineer, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) ‘s decision to withdraw its Internet Explorer web browser marks the end of a quarter – century of love – hate.
To commemorate his death, he spent a month and 430,000 won ($ 330) designing and ordering a tombstone with the Explorer logo “e” and the English epitaph: “It was a good tool for downloading other browsers.”
After the memorial was displayed in a cafe run by his brother in the southern city of Gyeongju, a photo of the tombstone went viral.
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Microsoft cut support for the once-ubiquitous Internet Explorer on Wednesday after 27 years of use to focus on its faster browser, Microsoft Edge.
Jung said the memorial shows his mixed feelings about older software, which has played such a big role in his working life.
“It was a pain in the ass, but I would call it a link between love and hate, because Explorer himself once dominated an era,” he told Reuters.
He said it took him longer to make sure his websites and online applications worked with Explorer than with other browsers.
The tombstone of the Internet Explorer browser, created by South Korean software engineer Jung Ki-young, is depicted on the roof of a cafe in Gyeongju, South Korea, June 17, 2022. Jung Ki-Young / Distribution via REUTERS
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But his customers kept asking him to make sure their websites looked good in Explorer, which has remained the default browser in South Korean government agencies and many banks for years.
Launched in 1995, Explorer has become the world’s leading browser for more than a decade, as it came with Microsoft’s Windows operating system, which was pre-installed on billions of computers. Read more
But it began to lose out to Google’s Chrome in the late 2000s and was the subject of countless internet memes, with some developers speculating that it was slow compared to its competitors.
Jung said he wanted to make people laugh with the tombstone, but was still surprised at how far the joke had gone online.
“That’s another reason to thank Explorer, now let me joke about world-class,” he said.
“I’m sorry he’s not here, but I won’t miss him. So retiring is a good death for me.”
(1 $ = 1292.2600 won)
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Report from Minwoo Park and Hyonhee Shin; Edited by Andrew Havens
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