To commemorate its demise, he spent a month and 430,000 won ($330) to design and order a headstone with the Explorer’s “E” logo and an English epitaph: “That’s a good one to download for other browsers.” The equipment was there.”
After a memorial display at a cafe run by his brother in the southern city of Gyeongju, a picture of the tomb went viral.
Microsoft eased support for the once-ubiquitous Internet Explorer on Wednesday after a 27-year race to focus on its faster browser, Microsoft Edge.
Jung said the memorial showed his mixed feelings for old software, which had played such a big part in his working life.
“It was a pain in the ass, but I would call it a love-hate relationship because the explorer himself once dominated an era,” he told Reuters.
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He said he found it took him longer to make sure his website and online apps worked with Explorer than with other browsers.
But his customers kept asking him to make sure his websites looked good in Explorer, which remained the default browser for years in South Korean government offices and many banks.
Launched in 1995, Explorer remained the world’s leading browser for more than a decade because it came bundled with Microsoft’s Windows operating system that came pre-installed on billions of computers.
But in the late 2000s it began to lose out to Google’s Chrome and became the subject of countless Internet memes, with some developers suggesting that it was sluggish compared to its rivals.
Jung said his intention was to make people laugh, but he was still surprised at how far the joke had progressed online.
“It’s another reason for me to thank Explorer, it has allowed me to make a world-class joke now,” he said.
“I’m sorry it’s gone, but won’t miss it. So its retirement, to me, is a good death.”
