So I do have a choice, right? HN is a pretty technical forum -- not normally a place for ignorant-consumer type viewpoints (no offense intended). Case in point, my version of "Chrome" (chromium on Debian) does not auto-update (I think so - It's the normal way on Debian, although I don't really use chromium but firefox).
Sorry, I'm just bad at leaving posts below my own ones unanswered. But actually I explained exactly what I thought was wrong with that (sgt's) comment and why I supposed it had been downvoted. I don't think there is a way of restating it -- OP has a perfectly valid point that does not need "nothing is wrong, just restart or install this thing that everybody needs to have" type rebuttals.