The Microsoft Internet Explorer Starter Kit was basically your ticket to the early web in the mid-’90s, back when getting online felt like entering a new universe. It first hit in 1995 alongside Internet Explorer 1.0, bundled on a CD-ROM with Windows 95 and sometimes tucked into magazines or sold at electronics stores. Each kit gave you the browser, dial-up setup tools, and a few “how to internet” guides—because, honestly, nobody knew what they were doing yet. As Internet Explorer jumped from 2.0 in late ’95 to 3.0 in ’96 and 4.0 in ’97, these kits became the quick-start packs that got millions of first-time users online. It was cheap, simple, and the first step toward Internet Explorer basically owning the web by the early 2000s.