Internet Explorer began like all great things, by copying someone else's source code. This time from Spyglass's Mosaic, an early web browser. Internet Exlorer was at this time in 1994 made by about six people. Internet Explorer was then released together with Windows 95, meaning that they would not have to pay royalties to Spyglass, which led to a lawsuit and an 8 million dollar out-of-court settlement.

After that amazing start to such a glorious browser, Mocrosoft pumped out more and more versions of Internet explorer every couple years, bundled with Microsoft Windows to avoid further lawsuits, featuring incremental improvements with every version leading to constant updates, because of course.

Everything went along in this manner for almost twenty years, until the release of Internet Explorer 11 in late 2013, which had many new features that led to Microsoft claiming that "It was the fastest Browser" shortly after release, and everything went along as it so often had before. Then, in 2015, Microsoft officialy released Microsoft Edge as a replacement of Internet Explorer, which wasn't really unexpected; Internet Explorer had been on a downward trend since the release of many other browsers, like, Firefox, Google Chrome, and others. So Microsoft replacing it isn't exactly surpricing. Internet Explorer is, however, still maintained by Microsoft, who have no plans to shut it down as of yet, and some people still use it, long after it has been all but completely discontinued. Though it is still maintained, to some degree or other.

And so ends the tale of the browser that succeded because it was free, and fell out of use when better options appeared and gradualy replaced it.