* nodejs specifically, but it wouldn't be ok no matter what the software was. It's my computer, not yours, don't download and run stuff without getting permission.
But what percentage of users of a document editor would say "don't install pdf stuff on my computer without asking, I don't need to export to pdf"
Installing dependencies for popular features is very much the norm. It's mainstream software.
The same complaint would be made for VSCode and Jetbrains - the most popular IDEs
I wouldn't bother using it for Web things like HTML, Js, CSS, because it simply isn't better at that than VSCode. Same goes for C# -- as a Microslop technology, you're better off using Microslop tooling.
For coding, I'm still stuck with VSCode and nvim.