After downloading and starting bitcoin from the sourceforge download last night, I was not at all pleased today to discover that Bitcoin had decided to add itself to my Gnome startup applications as its default behavior upon being run. Deciding that just because you ran an application once, you want to run it every time you start your computer is behavior I associate with junkware and malware - and the fact that Bitcoin is a p2p application that dials out and also runs a listener makes getting users' informed consent before making changes to default system behavior all the more important.

Please change the option "Start bitcoin on window system startup" to default to off. I understand this is intended as a feature and has no malicious intent, but especially for software that has the goals of privacy and security for users, I think it is best practice to have minimalistic about making changes to the system. Bitcoin is a very exciting project and maintaining a high degree of user confidence in the software and strong reputation for honesty and transparency will add value to the currency.

I think a connect/disconnect option would be very useful, perhaps with an "Are you sure?" confirmation before disconnecting. I agree that an auto-start option should not be added unless it's specified during an installation or first run dialog but should not be enabled by default.

Ideal Defaults

• Connect
• Don't Generate
• Don't Add to Auto Start

All three options should be able to be changed when Bitcoin starts for the first time.

It would be a privacy feature. If i don't want my IP address to be broadcast to other peers, I start the client, it asks if I want to connect to the network with the default set to yes. I uncheck it, the client then starts, I change the proxy setting and then click connect to network.