South Korea, which has among the world’s quickest common web speeds, remained bizarrely wedded to Microsoft’s Web Explorer.
A South Korean engineer who constructed a grave for Web Explorer — pictures of which rapidly went viral — instructed AFP Friday that the now-defunct internet browser had made his life a distress.
South Korea, which has among the world’s quickest common web speeds, remained bizarrely wedded to Microsoft Web Explorer, which was retired by the corporate earlier this week after 27 years.
In honour of the browser’s “demise”, a headstone marked with its signature “e” brand was arrange on the rooftop of a restaurant in South Korea’s southern metropolis of Gyeongju by engineer Kiyoung Jung, 38.
“He was a superb device to make use of to obtain different browsers,” the headstone’s inscription reads.
Photos of Jung’s joke tombstone rapidly unfold on-line, with customers of social media web site Reddit upvoting it tens of 1000’s of occasions.
As soon as dominant globally, Web Explorer was extensively reviled in recent times as a consequence of its slowness and glitches.
However in South Korea, it was obligatory for on-line banking and buying till about 2014, as all such on-line actions required websites to make use of ActiveX — a plugin created by Microsoft.
It remained the default browser for a lot of Seoul authorities websites till very not too long ago, native stories mentioned.
The web sites of the Korea Water Assets Company and the Korea Expressway Company solely functioned correctly in IE till not less than June 10, in accordance with a report by the Maeil Financial Each day. ‘Struggling’ for IE As a software program engineer and internet developer, Jung instructed AFP he consistently “suffered” at work due to compatibility points involving the now-defunct browser.
“In South Korea, when you find yourself doing internet improvement work, the expectation was at all times that it ought to look good in Web Explorer, relatively than Chrome,” he mentioned.
Web sites that look good in different browsers, corresponding to Safari or Chrome, can look very fallacious in IE, which regularly compelled him to spend many further hours working to make sure compatibility.
Jung mentioned that he was “overjoyed” by IE’s retirement.
However he additionally mentioned he felt genuinely nostalgic and emotional concerning the browser’s demise, as he remembers its heyday — one of many causes he was impressed to erect the grave stone.
He quoted Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki: “Individuals are usually relieved that machines do not have souls, however we as human beings really give our hearts to them,” Jung instructed AFP, explaining his emotions for IE.
He mentioned he was happy by the response to his joke grave and that he and his brother — who owns the cafe — plan to depart the monument on the rooftop in Gyeongju indefinitely.
“It has been very thrilling to make others giggle,” he mentioned.
