this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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The closest I ever got to this story was working help desk in 1996. A user called up saying they had deleted the Internet.
Took me a while to understand he dragged “the Internet” to the recycle bin on the desktop.
Yes! I remember this happening a lot, and I could never really truly understand the thought process behind it! But the thing is, this is still happening today, just in different context, and it's still equally as baffling!
It just means that they called their browser “the internet” right? Or am I missing something here?
It was an actual icon:
(found the image here https://mastodon.social/@benjedwards/11031604817437112)
I don't remember what it did though. I think it wasn't the browser, and I have a vague memory it wasn't for dial up either, but my memory's shit so I personally wouldn't trust me on that
Edit: had to look this up, it was IE. I think I didn't remember it because I never really used IE since I started off with NCSA Mosaic and then Netscape
It was Internet Explorer. But, what was probably confusing about it was that anything that required Internet access would start up the program that dialed the modem and connected to the Internet. So, clicking on the icon would eventually launch the browser, but first it would launch the dial-up program, which would take about 30s to connect.
As an aside, it really grates to see how Microsoft called their browser "The Internet". And that's the least dastardly thing they did that let them use their monopoly on operating systems to destroy Netscape.
I have a vague memory of the browser icon having the name "Internet" back in the day. Or maybe it was the dial-up icon. Might be that?
The original "Internet Explorer" icon was a globe and magnifying glass, with the text "The Internet," underneath