- 'Second family': tennis stars hunt winning formula with new coaches
- Philippines, South Korea agree to deepen maritime cooperation
- Mexico mayor murdered days after taking office
- Sardinia's sheep farmers battle bluetongue as climate warms
- Japan govt admits doctoring 'untidy' cabinet photo
- Israel marks first anniversary of Hamas's October 7 attack
- Darvish tames Ohtani as Padres thrash Dodgers
- Asian markets track Wall St rally on jobs data
- Family affair as LeBron, Bronny James make Lakers bow
- Cancer, cardiovascular drugs tipped for Nobel as prize week opens
- As Great Salt Lake dries, Utah Republicans pardon Trump climate skepticism
- Amazon activist warns of 'critical situation' ahead of UN forum
- Mourners pay tribute to latest victims of deadly Channel crossing
- Phillies win thriller to level Mets series
- Yu bags first PGA Tour win with playoff win
- PSG held by Nice to leave Monaco clear at top of Ligue 1
- Lewandowski treble for leaders Barca as Atletico held
- Fresh Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Sucic stunner earns Real Sociedad draw against Atletico
- PSG draw with Nice, fail to reclaim top spot in Ligue 1
- Gudmundsson downs AC Milan after De Gea's penalty heroics for Fiorentina
- 'Yes' vote prevails in Kazakhstan nuclear plant vote: TV
- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- 'Nothing gets in way of team,' says Celtics' MVP hopeful Tatum
- 'We will win!': Mozambique's ruling party confident at final vote rally
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Florida braces for Milton, FEMA head slams 'dangerous' Helene misinformation
- Postecoglou slams 'unacceptable' Spurs after 'terrible' loss at Brighton
- Marmoush double denies Bayern outright Bundesliga top spot
- Rallies worldwide call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefire
- New 'Joker' film, a dark musical, tops N.America box office
- Man Utd stalemate keeps Ten Hag in danger, Spurs rocked by Brighton
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Vikings hold off Jets in London to stay unbeaten
- Ahead of attack anniversary, Netanyahu says: 'We will win'
- West Indies cruise to T20 World Cup win over Scotland
- Man Utd fire another blank in Aston Villa stalemate
- Lewandowski treble powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Russian activist killed on front line in Ukraine
- Openda strike briefly sends Leipzig top of Bundesliga
- Goal-shy Man Utd have to 'step up', says Ten Hag
- India bowl out Bangladesh for 127 in T20 opener
- Madueke rescues Chelsea in draw with 10-man Forest
- Beckett's belief rewarded as Bluestocking storms to Arc glory
- Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election
- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
- Kaur leads India to victory over Pakistan in Women's T20 World Cup
- Juventus held by Cagliari after late penalty drama
- In France's Marseille, teen 'stabbed 50 times' then burned alive
RIP Internet Explorer: South Korean engineer's browser 'grave' goes viral
A 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.
"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.
It remained the default browser for many Seoul government sites until very recently, local reports said.
The websites of the Korea Water Resources Corporation and the Korea Expressway Corporation only functioned properly in IE until at least June 10, according to a report by the Maeil Economic Daily.
- 'Suffering' for IE -
As a software engineer and web developer, Jung told AFP he constantly "suffered" at work because of compatibility issues involving the now-defunct browser.
"In South Korea, when you are doing web development work, the expectation was always that it should look good in Internet Explorer, rather than Chrome," he said.
Websites that look good in other browsers, such as Safari or Chrome, can look very wrong in IE, which often forced him to spend many extra hours working to ensure compatibility.
Jung said that he was "overjoyed" by IE's retirement.
But he also said he felt genuinely nostalgic and emotional about the browser's demise, as he remembers its heyday -- one of the reasons he was inspired to erect the grave stone.
He quoted Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki: "People are often relieved that machines don't have souls, but we as human beings actually give our hearts to them," Jung told AFP, explaining his feelings for IE.
He said he was pleased by the response to his joke grave and that he and his brother -- who owns the cafe -- plan to leave the monument on the rooftop in Gyeongju indefinitely.
"It's been very exciting to make others laugh," he said.
A.Santos--PC