[bantunes]

Non-technical users leave defaults on all the time - do you really think there wasn't a sense in some people IE _was_ the internet? Don't you think MS wanted it that way? The "Connect to the Internet" icon on Windows 98's desktop had the IE icon on it!

And this wasn't "these days" when "a free browser is included with every device", it was 1998.

I think you're being dense on purpose.

[WalterBright]

Microsoft included a number of utilities with its operating system - like a text editor - that operating systems have included since the beginning. There's no magic line that says a browser cannot be included.