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RIP Internet Explorer: South Korean engineer's browser 'grave' goes viral

South Korea, which has some of the world's fastest average internet speeds, remained bizarrely wedded to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which was retired by the company earlier this week after 27 years.

Claire Lee (AFP)
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Seoul, South Korea
Fri, June 17, 2022 Published on Jun. 17, 2022 Published on 2022-06-17T11:54:05+07:00

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This undated handout photo provided courtesy of Kiyoung Jung on June 17, 2022 shows a grave for Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which was retired by the company earlier this week after 27 years, in honour of the browser's This undated handout photo provided courtesy of Kiyoung Jung on June 17, 2022 shows a grave for Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which was retired by the company earlier this week after 27 years, in honour of the browser's (AFP/Kiyoung Jung)

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South Korean engineer who built a grave for Internet Explorer -- photos of which quickly went viral -- told AFP Friday that the now-defunct web browser had made his life a misery.

South Korea, which has some of the world's fastest average internet speeds, remained bizarrely wedded to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which was retired by the company earlier this week after 27 years.

In honour of the browser's "death", a gravestone marked with its signature "e" logo was set up on the rooftop of a cafe in South Korea's southern city of Gyeongju by engineer Kiyoung Jung, 38.

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"He was a good tool to use to download other browsers," the gravestone's inscription reads. 

Images of Jung's joke tombstone quickly spread online, with users of social media site Reddit upvoting it tens of thousands of times.

Once dominant globally, Internet Explorer was widely reviled in recent years due to its slowness and glitches.

But in South Korea, it was mandatory for online banking and shopping until about 2014, as all such online activities required sites to use ActiveX -- a plugin created by Microsoft. 

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