Internet Explorer, the love-to-hate web browser from Microsoft, has died. Explorer was 26.
In a move to focus on its faster browser, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft ended support for its once-omnipresent Internet Explorer.
It’s not that anyone is really going to miss the software—most of us have been oblivious to its existence for years.
However, it seems that there is still someone grieving IE’s death. South Korean software engineer, Jung Ki-young, spent 430,000 Korean won (about $330 US) of his own money to have a headstone made for poor, deceased IE.
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The headstone features the logo, IE’s birthdate — August 17, 1995, and, of course its “death” date, June 15, 2022, as well as a stinging epitaph reading:
“He was a good tool to download other browsers.”
Jung has spent most of his professional life working with IE, and was one of the lucky guys who got to test websites and apps on it to ensure software compatibility (which honestly sounds like the 7th ring of hell). The work was important as IE was the primary browser for South Korean government offices and a few banks.
It was slow work. Obviously.
“….I would call it a love-hate relationship because Explorer itself once dominated an era.” Jung told Reuters.
Images of the headstone, of course, went viral.
“That’s another reason for me to thank the Explorer, it has now allowed me to make a world-class joke,” he remarked. “I regret that it’s gone, but won’t miss it. So its retirement, to me, is a good death.”
A good death that probably went really slow…
The headstone is now in Gyeongju, South Korea, at a cafe owned by Jung’s brother, where it will remain for the foreseeable future.
I can’t believe someone in South Korea went to the trouble of commissioning a tombstone for Internet Explorer just so they could kill it a second time with the most vicious roast you’ll ever see pic.twitter.com/5xpePtoPkN
— Cian Maher (@cianmaher0) June 17, 2022
