The US government antitrust oversight of Microsoft expires in the very same week when Google chooses to launch its Chromebook. This is ironic.

It is believed that the US Department of Justice Investigation resulted owing to Microsoft’s practice of unfairly exploiting its operating system market domination in order to suppress browser competition. Microsoft was worried that such competition would suffocate the sale of their operating system.

As per industry analysts, DOJ imposed restrictions on how Windows handles the browsers even though the consent decree seemed hardly affect the development of the browser market. However, the competitive market led to the rise of the vibrant market. This was what DOJ was seeking. Also, the variety of browsers available today plus their capabilities are better than they were in 1998.

Mitchell Baker, chairperson of the Mozilla Foundationwhich maintains the Firefox browser states that the monopolistic approach adopted by Microsoft led to the consent decree and was detrimental to the Web industry as a whole. According to Mitchell, it was a huge success for Mozilla to infuse competition and encourage innovation within the browser market again.

Aaron Gustafson, group manager for the Web Standards Project which determines how closely browsers are adherent to Web standards tates that since the 1990’s, a lot has changed in the world of browsers.

After making its formal debut in 1995, the Netscape browser was the first to gain widespread use. However, Microsoft strove hard to fiercely promote its own browser among users by packaging it with new copies of Windows. By the late 1990’s, 90% were using Microsoft’s browser.

Netscape saw the use of their browser as more than to look at Web pages. They visualized it as a platform for a wide range of enterprise applications that minimize the requirement of operating system such as Windows. This prompted Microsoft to act on this and try to dominate the browser market.

The then Netscape CEO, Jim Barksdale, testifying to the DOJ in 1999, mentioned that the use of the browser extended beyond tools to browse the Web to serving as a platform for the development of all types of software applications that are network centric. He added that this extension allowed software applications to be developed: applications that were directed more to the Internet than the desktop.This made them a potential partial substitute to the Windows OS as a development platform. It was the infrastructure needed to support Netscape and not the browser itself that was ahead of its time. To deliver rich Web interactively and perhaps extend the use of Windows, Microsoft tied IE to the underlying Windows platform through technologies like ActiveX. This was not unusual. America Online was one example to deliver add-ons to enhance websites, the reason being lack of advanced functionality such as video support popular among users. However, since those days, Web browser designers—including Microsoft—have started using JavaScript, CSS, HTML5, and other platform neutral standards to add rich content.

Gustafson says browsers are far more compliant to standards than in 1998, and by replying on standards and less on underlying platforms, browsers could offer richer experiences.