Lots of stuff "back in the day" simply required IE and you just had to have it. And for people who needed stuff to "just work", IE generally did because it was

Lots of stuff "back in the day" simply required IE and you just had to have it. And for people who needed stuff to "just work", IE generally did because it was the most popular browser in the world. I don't recall Firefox or Netscape ever being the majority browser.