I refer you to the Microsoft antitrust case. Microsoft owned the desktop OS, and was using that to give preference to IE. That... didn't fly. Using a monopoly in one area to gain market share in another area is in fact an antitrust violation.
The antitrust case was about Microsoft giving away a free browser. Every operating system comes with a free browser. My phone comes with a free browser. My kindle comes with a free browser.
No. The antitrust case was about Microsoft using their control of the OS to push users to use Microsoft's browser.
The issue wasn't that Microsoft gave away IE for free. Netscape gave away Navigator for free, too. The issue was that Microsoft tried to "leverage" Windows to increase IE's market share.
Specifically, Microsoft told PC builders (to which MS was a supplier) that they would not sell Windows to them if they intended to pre-install Netscape as well.
Microsoft tried to use their monopoly as the supplier of one piece of software (the OS) to distort the market for another piece of software (the browser).
Netscape did not give Navigator away to PC builders for free originally; selling volume licenses was their business model, and Microsoft illegally destroyed it. Hence the prosecution.
I quit using Netscape because it crashed far more often than Explorer. Nobody tried to stop me from using Netscape. I had no trouble pushing a button and installing it.
Netscape in those days was a borderline unusable product, and trying to blame Microsoft is misplaced.
Have you ever tried to install another browser on your kindle?
Also, much of the drama in the trial was about Microsoft removing Explorer from the distribution, not about barriers to the installation of Netscape.
My point is that Netscape was uncompetitive due to it being nearly useless from constantly crashing. Blaming Microsoft is misplaced.
Today I still have IE on my machine, but I never use it, because Chrome causes fewer problems. Having it sit on the machine does no harm, and doesn't bother me.
That anti-trust battle was the first in history where it was a dispute between one free product and another free product. Nobody ever demonstrated any harm to consumers at all. That was never even an issue at trial. Nobody ever demonstrated that Netscape couldn't be installed.
