IE was a superior product, and a lot of Microsoft haters tend to forget this. Netscape was buggy, slow, and bloated compared to contemporaneous versions of IE

Now explain Opera. I remember seeing the lengthy blog post by the CEO of Opera demonstrating how Microsoft was deliberately messing with the browser when users tried to access Hotmail and other Microsoft controlled sites. It's a matter of historical irony that Google used some of those same tactics on Microsoft later when they were trying to make Windows Phone a thing.

IE won the browser wars -- fair and square.

There was nothing fair about it. Microsoft went so far as to tie the browser to the system in order to compete. It messed with compatibility to screw with users of competing browsers.

You can snow people who didn't live through it, but you cannot snow those of us who were there and did.