TurboTax Web hit the scene in 1999, right when the internet was starting to get serious for everyday stuff—not just chat rooms and dial-up games. Intuit saw the shift and dropped the first browser-based version of TurboTax so people could do their taxes online instead of messing with CDs or floppy disks. Before that, it was all desktop software since its launch in 1984. The early 2000s brought steady updates: better UI, auto-import from W-2s, and faster e-filing that actually worked. By 2005, millions had already ditched paper returns thanks to TurboTax Web. It wasn’t flashy, but it worked—and if you were doing taxes back then, you remember how much of a game-changer that was.