Someone spent USD 330 for an Internet Explorer gravestone, it went viral

South Korean software engineer Jung Ki-young decided to splash some humor about Internet Explorer, and spent about 430,000 KRW (~USD 330PHP 19,366INR 27,967EUR 314CNY 2,402) to make a headstone for the dead browser ahead of its official retirement date on June 15.

Photo/ Jung Ki-young

The memorial is held on the roof of Ki-young’s brother’s café in Gyeongju, South Korea, and the tomb epitaph reads “He was a good tool to download other browsers,” just below the IE’s iconic logo.

Reuters reported that Ki-young commissioned the memorial in commemoration of the browser’s demise, and he had mixed feelings for it since the IE played a big chunk in his career.

“It was a pain in the a$$, but I would call it a love-hate relationship because Explorer itself once dominated an era,” Ki-young said as many of his customers kept approaching him to ensure their websites properly work and looked good in IE even amidst the formidable presence of the likes of Chrome and Firefox.

In fact, IE remained the default browser in S. Korean government offices and banks for many years. And other parts of the world, such as Japan, have yet to ditch IE, and will still probably use it for months.

According to Nikkei, IE’s retirement stirred a ‘sense of panic among businesses and government agencies in Japan that waited to update their websites until the last minute.’

Even though Microsoft has called wraps for IE, the company plans to support it in some contexts, for example, Microsoft Edge’s ‘IE Mode’ will linger through 2029 or later.