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Interesting: On MacOS, with the option "Check for updates but let you choose to install them" chosen in the Firefox preferences, the experience is exactly that, update in the background without further notifications. That is, I get a prompt that an update is available and whether I want to download it now or not. If so, it starts a download in the background and applies the update on the next start of the program. (You can also check for updates and restart in the "About" dialog.)

(Note: I've set new tabs and windows to open with a blank view, which may also make a difference, as there is no default content.)

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It's specifically a Linux ecosystem problem they're talking about. The package managers don't coordinate with Firefox and just change files out from under it. That means that you can end up with the processes Firefox spawns when a tab is opened not matching the main process. This caused problems often enough that Firefox implemented a mechanism to detect this case and tell you to restart the browser.

Browsers aren't the only software that could be broken by auto updates on Linux and you can set up exactly the same behavior in at least APT's unattended-upgrades (dunno about RPM).

I guessed so. (Which is why I brought up the behavior on that other OS.)