The title is incorrect. The updater doesn't install all of the Google apps. It just updates Google apps you do have installed when there are new versions available.
This is becoming more and more the norm, at least on Windows. I recently installed Office for the first time on my windows machine. At the end of the installer there was a checkbox that said something like, "Make Live my default search engine and make IE my default browser." I wish I had taken a screenshot. Apple is just as guilty with their windows software. But it's funny how some things are acceptable on Windows and not acceptable on macs. It's like you expect people to pickpocket you in a bad neighborhood but not a good one.
The Google Updater was causing problems for me on Mac OS X (it would continuously fail to update), so I removed it. For anyone else also using Mac OS X and wanting to remove the updater, you can read how here:<p><a href="http://blog.raamdev.com/2008/12/19/howto-remove-google-software-update-on-mac-os-x" rel="nofollow">http://blog.raamdev.com/2008/12/19/howto-remove-google-softw...</a>
It started already some time ago and it's doing it also on Windows, not just on Macs:<p><i>Google Software Update sneaks its way onto computers</i><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=387759" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=387759</a>
Auto update is horrid for disabled people and those with other usability issues. There you are happily using a product, and the next day you cannot. I'm going to be a crabby old snot and say, perhaps Google would see things differently if 99% of its employees were not so young and healthy. The trouble is, Google isn't just a whiz-bang company with whiz-bang ideas. It's almost a public utility.
On Windows a while back, I used Sysinternals' (now Microsoft) Autoruns to stop their updater from launching on startup.<p>I don't remember whether the individual applications reversed this setting. I seem to recall it sticking for at least a while.<p><a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.asp...</a>