Hum, interesting. I actually never thought that an ISP website would only open with IE.
About the data part, it does make sense yes. But wouldn't there be other ways to collect data in such a way that doesn't have anything to do with the browser?
yeah it seems forced, the part till login opens but later part refuses to open, tried to open with user agent changed but still no success.
about data,
not exactly, what you CAN collect with browser = all activities performed + programs installed + websites visited+etc,etc,etc.... just about everything.
by other means one can only collect data if you visit their sites/ sites with your ads on it/sniff data.......... or have some spyware installed, if a program not meant to send data sends data it raises all sorts of red flags....
Browsers can do anything and they can be
"updated" (read instructed in advanced spying).... you can just add more "features" anytime you wish....
the data sent is encrypted and there is no way to view it... use a good encryption and you get unbreakable protection against reversing it..
Lets not forget the default search engine...
FF = google
chrome = google
IE = bing (right?)
most people won't change search engines from the search bar. FF provides a drop-down, IE has only one option in its dropdown when it installs, more can be added though...