Internet Explorer no longer bundled with OS X

It's official -- Internet Explorer is no longer bundled with OS X. The browser is completely absent from fresh installations of 10.4. But the good news gets better -- according to a coworker of mine who freshly installed Tiger (I chose the 'Archive and Install' method) the ubiquitous Microsoft web fonts -- Verdana and Georgia -- are included.

For those who haven't been following along, Verdana and Georgia were in previous builds of OS X thanks to Internet Explorer. Without installing the browser, the fonts simply did not exist, and most web pages were rendered with Arial and Times Roman (yes, imagine the horror). Everyone knew development on IE/Mac was over, and that once Apple's browser-bundling deal with Microsoft ran out OS X would ship without it, but no one knew what would happen to the fonts.

So it would appear Apple licensed the fonts from Microsoft (perhaps that's part of what that type-licensing deal Microsoft announced a few weeks back was partially about) to fill the gap. Thank goodness.