Yes, that was the way it was done back then. You got a CD from your ISP and it loaded a heap of junk for you, together with their version of whatever browser that defaulted to their webpage.

I use BT right now, and all I seem to have are the drivers for the modem, setup software, and an online/onboard help file. I have a couple of other modems and they just loaded the driver and management software.

I do recall that you could get rid of most of the AOL software back in the days of dial-up, I just never had to do it.