The very short answer is that they of course didn't. It's utter nonsense. I was around in those days, worked on Mozilla and Nutscrape etc. Back in the day there were many browsers, all spun off the Spyglass original code, the internet was pre javascript and it was a very different place. Then the browser wars started, there was Netscape and IE and others, back then it was viable for individuals to actually make a competitive browser, but over time they got to be big complex pieces of code, basically a VM. Security became a big deal and the open source movement built the best browsers, Mozilla, Phoenix and Firefox ten years ago. Microsoft tried to get the Internet to come to it rather than the other way round, just as companies like AOL did. They tried to add proprietary technology to lock in the internet to their Windows platform. Can't really blame them for that, but meanwhile every user on the planet was free to install any other browser they wanted. Just because they didn't isn't Microsoft's fault. They didn't prevent you doing so.
These days the internet has shifted from the desktop to laptops to mobile phones and tablets where Apple and Google have the lock in as Microsoft did. Apple allow other browsers provided they don't want fast javascript. Yet nobody's accusing Apple of holding up the internet.
The main things that really did hold back the internet was bandwidth, it was/is the phone and cable companies because they really do have a stranglehold on their customers.
Others here have suggested microsoft tried to stop others from innovating. Again, total bullshit, they forced exactly nobody to use their software.
I am no fan of MSFT, I haven't used their products in years, but someone who was around then really needs to set the story straight.
Microsoft was declared a monopoly and ordered broken up as punishment largely because Gates held firm that a web browser was an integral part of an operating system. (It was only the switch in US Presidential administrations that prevented the "remedy" from taking effect.)
Seems so fucking silly in 2014.
The laws around antitrust are complex and this is a huge oversimplification -- but I have a hard time believing anyone here thinks that shipping a computer with a browser pre-installed, and in no way preventing access to downloading another browser with it, deserves government intervention into the structure of your company.
Remember, this was an era when software came on many, many floppy disks and a 28.8 modem card cost $299 and required a screwdriver to install. Off by one CSS bugs and allowing both VBScript and JScript and OLE controls to run in the browser wasn't exactly the roadblock to an open information nirvana.
Microsoft was convicted of using their monopoly in operating systems to prevent other browsers from being installed on Windows computers by OEM manufacturers. The browser/OS integration was a sideshow to the main legal issue.
There was no "conviction" (it's not a criminal case) - the judge's findings of fact centered on 1) monopoly & monopolistic behavior and 2) "tying" - specifically saying that a browser was a part of the operating system.
this is a very narrow minded view. microsoft began creating plugins for utilities that did not follow web standards such as activex that would integrate the browser with the operating system. on top of them being horribly flawed with security bugs, these plugins would then only work for ie. microsoft then pushed people creating web content to use these non-standard plugins in their site because they would not modify ie to include w3c standards that did the same thing. so now many people and companies were forced to use ie because some site they needed to use required one of those plugins.
this continued on until so many major security flaws were found in ie that it drove people who didnt even know what a web browser was to firefox.
This too is a narrow view. Another way to look at it is that people were building apps in the browser and they needed to do real stuff. Browser apps needed to talk to devices, legacy systems, card readers, EEPROM programmers, medical imagers... whatever the hell it is that people jam into Windows. And those devices weren't magically going to sprout a REST interface. There had to be a transitional period.
Microsoft had been making developers happy for a decade by giving that exact sort of functionality in local file Explorer, in Word, in Excel, on the desktop, via COM/OLE/VBScript and god knows what else. So they tried it.
The blood/brain barrier between OS and Browser remains up for debate a decade later.
The W3C remains woefully understaffed and even today hasn't solved basic problems that were solved in the dumb terminal era of the 1970s.
There's a lot of shit that got shoved into the browser when we were excited about browsers that shouldn't be there. Likewise there's a LOT of OS-level functionality missing from the browser that may or may not belong there, but which I don't see appearing in the next 10 years either.
microsoft began creating plugins for utilities that did not follow web standards such as activex that would integrate the browser with the operating system.
It should be noted that the technology behind ActiveX actually started as a Netscape plugin developed by a 3rd party. I remember trying it out way before ActiveX became a thing in IE. It was a crazy idea but back then everything was a crazy idea. There were hundreds of different plugins for all the browsers. Nobody knew what was going to stick. ActiveX stuck because it was Microsoft and because COM was a well established technology.
how come people don't upvote this answer? Yes, it was in MSFT own interest to curb the development of the web, but there were also other factors involved.
Comments
The very short answer is that they of course didn't. It's utter nonsense. I was around in those days, worked on Mozilla and Nutscrape etc. Back in the day there were many browsers, all spun off the Spyglass original code, the internet was pre javascript and it was a very different place. Then the browser wars started, there was Netscape and IE and others, back then it was viable for individuals to actually make a competitive browser, but over time they got to be big complex pieces of code, basically a VM. Security became a big deal and the open source movement built the best browsers, Mozilla, Phoenix and Firefox ten years ago. Microsoft tried to get the Internet to come to it rather than the other way round, just as companies like AOL did. They tried to add proprietary technology to lock in the internet to their Windows platform. Can't really blame them for that, but meanwhile every user on the planet was free to install any other browser they wanted. Just because they didn't isn't Microsoft's fault. They didn't prevent you doing so.
These days the internet has shifted from the desktop to laptops to mobile phones and tablets where Apple and Google have the lock in as Microsoft did. Apple allow other browsers provided they don't want fast javascript. Yet nobody's accusing Apple of holding up the internet.
The main things that really did hold back the internet was bandwidth, it was/is the phone and cable companies because they really do have a stranglehold on their customers.
Others here have suggested microsoft tried to stop others from innovating. Again, total bullshit, they forced exactly nobody to use their software.
I am no fan of MSFT, I haven't used their products in years, but someone who was around then really needs to set the story straight.
Microsoft was declared a monopoly and ordered broken up as punishment largely because Gates held firm that a web browser was an integral part of an operating system. (It was only the switch in US Presidential administrations that prevented the "remedy" from taking effect.)
Seems so fucking silly in 2014.
The laws around antitrust are complex and this is a huge oversimplification -- but I have a hard time believing anyone here thinks that shipping a computer with a browser pre-installed, and in no way preventing access to downloading another browser with it, deserves government intervention into the structure of your company.
Remember, this was an era when software came on many, many floppy disks and a 28.8 modem card cost $299 and required a screwdriver to install. Off by one CSS bugs and allowing both VBScript and JScript and OLE controls to run in the browser wasn't exactly the roadblock to an open information nirvana.
Microsoft was convicted of using their monopoly in operating systems to prevent other browsers from being installed on Windows computers by OEM manufacturers. The browser/OS integration was a sideshow to the main legal issue.
There was no "conviction" (it's not a criminal case) - the judge's findings of fact centered on 1) monopoly & monopolistic behavior and 2) "tying" - specifically saying that a browser was a part of the operating system.
this is a very narrow minded view. microsoft began creating plugins for utilities that did not follow web standards such as activex that would integrate the browser with the operating system. on top of them being horribly flawed with security bugs, these plugins would then only work for ie. microsoft then pushed people creating web content to use these non-standard plugins in their site because they would not modify ie to include w3c standards that did the same thing. so now many people and companies were forced to use ie because some site they needed to use required one of those plugins.
this continued on until so many major security flaws were found in ie that it drove people who didnt even know what a web browser was to firefox.
This too is a narrow view. Another way to look at it is that people were building apps in the browser and they needed to do real stuff. Browser apps needed to talk to devices, legacy systems, card readers, EEPROM programmers, medical imagers... whatever the hell it is that people jam into Windows. And those devices weren't magically going to sprout a REST interface. There had to be a transitional period.
Microsoft had been making developers happy for a decade by giving that exact sort of functionality in local file Explorer, in Word, in Excel, on the desktop, via COM/OLE/VBScript and god knows what else. So they tried it.
The blood/brain barrier between OS and Browser remains up for debate a decade later.
The W3C remains woefully understaffed and even today hasn't solved basic problems that were solved in the dumb terminal era of the 1970s.
There's a lot of shit that got shoved into the browser when we were excited about browsers that shouldn't be there. Likewise there's a LOT of OS-level functionality missing from the browser that may or may not belong there, but which I don't see appearing in the next 10 years either.
It should be noted that the technology behind ActiveX actually started as a Netscape plugin developed by a 3rd party. I remember trying it out way before ActiveX became a thing in IE. It was a crazy idea but back then everything was a crazy idea. There were hundreds of different plugins for all the browsers. Nobody knew what was going to stick. ActiveX stuck because it was Microsoft and because COM was a well established technology.
how come people don't upvote this answer? Yes, it was in MSFT own interest to curb the development of the web, but there were also other factors involved.