"@ Pirate Dave : sure, they could do that. But in the real world why should they? It's their product so what they parcel with it is up to them. The whole anti-competition thing, in this case at least, is invalid."

You would be entirely correct if you weren't so absolutely wrong. There's a reason we have anti-competition laws. In this case, Microsoft is using it's dominant OS position (monopoly) to artificially increase adoption of it's browser (gain a competitive advantage in another area). Many people have used the line "But they give IE away for free, so it's not as if it makes them any money". This line is both true and false. It is true that Microsoft gives IE away at zero cost. However, it is false that it doesn't make them any money. It doesn't directly make them money, but the indirect money is very lucrative. It goes like this -- 1) bundle IE with Windows; 2) people use IE because "it's already there, so why should I bother finding another one?"; 3) websites code to IE's non-compliant browser because that's what the majority of people use; 4) those websites won't work on non-IE browsers; 5) IE is only available for Windows; 6) If you want to browse those websites, you'll need Windows.

As for the question of how to obtain a browser without having one already, the answers have already been given, but I'll sum them up here anyway -- 1) the computer's distributor will put one on (like they do with trial/junk software); 2) possibly telnet; 3) FTP; 4) installation CD or USB drive. For those people in a business, the network administrator can/will install it, or it will be available from a shared network path. On any networked system, if you have downloaded it on another networked machine (even a Linux box which has no browser installed but does have wget) with SMB/CIFS (file sharing) configured, you can copy it from that file share. In short, there are multiple ways of obtaining a browser without having one installed already. Just because you may not know how to do it doesn't mean it can't be done. I don't know how paper is made, but I'm pretty sure it can be done.