The Register has reported that America Online will remove the bundled Internet Explorer browser from future releases of their AOL client software for Mac OSX.

The news is not unexpected after AOL's licensing agreement with Microsoft expired earlier this year.

Beta testers have been asked to test the Java engine of the new browser, apparently based on "Gecko," the core technology behind AOL's Netscape web browser.

Experts are confused whether to applaud AOL's move away from the "Evil Empire" or to have a good belly laugh over the choice to adopt what is notoriously the worst browser on any platform.