I don't think Microsoft should be handed a medal for the Internet. As others pointed out, they have done quite a bit that could be considered harmful. They did kind of push PCs onto a common user's home desk, however the Mac was a home user's machine too, and they didn't really do a thing to harm it as far as I know.

The net as we know it and before we knew it, was built for BSD. There's a joke I haven't heard in a while:

Windows NT, built for the Internet.

The Internet - Built for BSD.

If you want to listen to someone who was there talk about this subject buy a DVD called "20 Years of Berkeley UNIX" it has a good chunk of the history on it. I bought it from bsdmall.

IE as a browser.... I'll be good heh. I think it does a GREAT job at what it is SUPPOSED to do. It's the **** it does it wasn't supposed to that makes me want to pull the glue out of my mohawk. (Like crashing, being unstable, though for the most part that has been somewhat fixed and isn't like it used to be).

I trained myself on using Links and Lynx though too. I wanted to see what text only browsing was like so I used that, Pine, Elm, Mutt, FTP, and things like that just to get a feel for what it was like before I owned a computer.

I still use Mutt as my main client. I like it. I still use Links or Lynx from time to time if I know exactly what I'm looking for, or for when I'd be at school downloading things to a home machine over SSH.