I've been a professional C, Perl, PHP and Python developer.
I'm an ex-sysadmin from the late 20th century.
These days I do more Javascript and CSS and whatnot, and promote UX and accessibility.
I see silent installs to be for things like dependencies. Installing X app also installs Y utility. It goes into malware when it's things like "Install Java" and you get the Yahoo! Toolbar, where it's almost silent.
But more for things like if you're using an app and it needs a certain plugin to export to a particular file format and it requests and installs it automatically on demand. I'd prefer to actively give permission, personally.
I see silent installs to be for things like dependencies. Installing X app also installs Y utility. It goes into malware when it's things like "Install Java" and you get the Yahoo! Toolbar, where it's almost silent.
But more for things like if you're using an app and it needs a certain plugin to export to a particular file format and it requests and installs it automatically on demand. I'd prefer to actively give permission, personally.
My brain went straight to the Yahoo! Toolbar scenario too.