<i>&gt; Microsoft were kind of correct in the &quot;browser choice&quot; lawsuit that they&#x27;d used the browser as an OS component, and everyone else was correct that this was kind of a bad idea.</i><p>Unfortunately, Microsoft signed a consent decree with the DoJ in 1995 which allowed them to add features to the operating system but meant they couldn&#x27;t tie a separate program to the operating system. Therefore the browser <i>had to be</i> an added feature.<p>This was only a tiny part of a much broader decree. None the less, you can thank Janet Reno and the US government for the problems this has caused ever since ;-)