Almost none of my programs on Linux do that by default, because they're handled by my package manager. Programs like Spacemacs (updating ELPA repos on boot, wh

Almost none of my programs on Linux do that by default, because they're handled by my package manager. Programs like Spacemacs (updating ELPA repos on boot, which I actually kind of think is a mistake) and Calibre (just kind of doing its own thing) are the exception to that rule, but they're pretty rare in my personal experience. Even Firefox doesn't update itself on my Linux box. That's kind of why I was thinking of Linux as cheating on some level. Windows/Mac programs basically can't do the same thing, since they don't have the same infrastructure. > I just meant to point out that programs using the Internet are probably a fairly considerable majority for most regular users. I would push back a tiny bit on this -- I don't think regular users would be surprised by a native program contacting the Internet, but I do think they would be surprised if that rest request failing meant that the program couldn't launch.