It wasn't ridiculous. The idea was for IE to use existing components in the OS, and to allow other programs (including ones from third parties) to use component

It wasn't ridiculous. The idea was for IE to use existing components in the OS, and to allow other programs (including ones from third parties) to use components from the browser. This enabled you to open web pages in other applications, including Windows Explorer. Microsoft had to rewrite the IE3 browser into components, and this componentization was very popular at the time. It won Microsoft a huge deal with AOL and meant ISPs could customize IE (which Netscape wouldn't allow), which also contributed to IE's victory over Netscape Navigator. In the end, Microsoft won the browser case by 2-1 on appeal, and the US Justice Department lost it. It's nothing like the Google case.