I was around during the time period you're talking about and in my personal experience, Microsoft had plenty of help in killing Netscape from Netscape itself.
I switched to MSIE3 not because of bundling or FUD but because it was a much better browser.
Microsoft has been a bad actor at times when it comes to business practices, but I think a lot of people overestimate how much that helped them and underestimate how much competitor mistakes helped them. Netscape Navigator post-2.0 was a piece of garbage until Firefox rolled around.
I agree - netscape had a big hand in their own implosion. Their codebases had gotten away from them and they had problems managing well after all that growth and hype.
It also didn't help that they went around doing lots of press about how they were going to completely replace the OS layer and kill microsoft when they had basically zero code along those lines.
Sure they had the vision, but it painted a huge (even larger) bullseye on their back while they were busy sinking in their own quicksand.
Nevertheless, it is rare if ever that a company retained a significant market share for a product once Microsoft decided to kill it by forcibly bundling the same functionality with their 95% monopoly product, Windows.
Microsoft acted stupidly too. Mr. G didn't understand the internet until years after everyone else. MSIE was a piece of junk. The decision to integrate it deeply into the operating system was a security disaster of epic proportions.
The difference between Microsoft and their competitors was that they had unlimited money in the bank and could ship whatever they wanted on 95% of new machines whenever they wanted. Consequently, Microsoft could screw up just as often or even more often than other companies. Most new products only get one chance in the market, but Microsoft products always got a second chance, or a third chance, or however many chances it takes for the competition to give up.
IE3 was the first good browser from Microsoft, but I didn't consider it that much better. It was just good enough not to miss Netscape (much) if you made the switch.
I switched to MSIE3 not because of bundling or FUD but because it was a much better browser.
Microsoft has been a bad actor at times when it comes to business practices, but I think a lot of people overestimate how much that helped them and underestimate how much competitor mistakes helped them. Netscape Navigator post-2.0 was a piece of garbage until Firefox rolled around.