[1337p337]

A pretty dim view of users, but does that mean that Chrome is not for technical people? It's for an audience that is too dumb to be capable of understanding auto-update? (This audience, incidentally, does not exist: users aren't that dumb.)

In either case, the Right Thing was discovered long, long ago: sensible defaults. Users who don't understand the software needn't worry, and those that know what they're doing can make the appropriate decision.

It bugs me to no end when developers take this parental tack with users, as if we were not only responsible for producing the software, but also for ensuring the user doesn't do anything to harm themselves. Put an are-you-sure dialog box in the way, but don't try to force anything on your users. Even if you know better, you're over-stepping and your second-guessing of the user is misguided.