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Automatic updates are a good default, you can always disable them if you don't want them.

Good default is to ask users about their preferences explicitly and not to hide that kind of settings anywhere.

Most users are computer illiterate, so they would choose to not auto-update to skip the hassle, and then never manually update anyways.

Every FireFox install comes with auto-update enabled.

Nope, mine on linux doesn't auto-update itself, though I update it diligently, but manually

In the past I would have agreed with you. Sadly there are "updates" which remove functionality.