Salva Mubarak Senior Features Writer

ICYMI, Internet Explorer has joined the ranks of tech like cassette tapes and rotary landlines after it was discontinued by its parent company Microsoft.

The software giant decided to discontinue the web browser after nearly three decades in favour of developing their faster version of the web browser, called Microsoft Edge.

The now-defunct browser had endured a love-hate relationship with most of the world as it was many of our first experiences with the Internet. Not to forget, how its sluggishness became the subject of countless memes over the years.

This is why South Korean software engineer Jung Ki-young decided to commemorate the iconic piece of tech history by throwing a memorial for it, complete with a custom headstone. Ki-young has, reportedly, spent 430,000 won (INR 26,000 approx) on designing and ordering a tombstone with Explorer’s iconic logo and an English epitaph that read, “He was a good tool to download other browsers.”

The engineer, who threw the memorial at his brother’s cafe in Gyeongju (where the tombstone resides now), told Reuters that the memorial showed his mixed feelings for the older software as it had played a large part in his working life. “It was a pain in the ass, but I would call it a love-hate relationship because Explorer itself once dominated an era.”

According to Ki-young, even though making websites and online apps work on Internet Explorer was a time consuming and tedious process, his customers would insist on Explorer-compatible software from him as it remained the default web browser for years in Korean government offices and banks. The engineer acknowledged that the idea for a tombstone and a memorial was just a joke that got out of hand, “That’s another reason for me to thank the Explorer, it has now allowed me to make a world-class joke,“ he said, ”I regret that it’s gone, but won’t miss it. So its retirement, to me, is a good death.“