Add "block new elements by default" as an option in the configuration wizard.

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The options are independent.

Auto-update means downloads may not necessarily occur at a time and place of your choosing. This is OK for most people, but there are a number of scenarios in which someone might want to disable this. In general, it's a good idea to ask permission first before doing something without your knowledge (even if it's for your benefit, and most likely in your best interest). This falls in that category. (Some people also get confused about the difference between add-on updates and Tracker Library updates.)

Whether or not something should be blocked is a matter of personal choice. If your inclination is to block everything possible, with a minimum amount of thought involved, Ghostery may be the wrong product for you. Something like Adblock Plus or NoScript might be better.

Block New Elements raises the same questions as auto-update, albeit with somewhat different concerns. It looks like an on/off switch, but it's really a high/low switch, with no real "off" position. With it enabled, you're allowing Ghostery to make major changes without confirmation. If disabled, only minor changes take effect. This isn't a bad thing: you're not going to be worse off because of it, and it affords you the opportunity to make good choices. Blocking New Elements can cause something you depend on to suddenly and inexplicably stop working. If you look in the support area to see if there are any relevant problem reports, you may not find any, when it's still too soon for many other people to have encountered the same issue.

What Pete mentioned sounds innovative, but it's really just creeping back toward the way a previous version of Ghostery behaved. It's impossible to please everyone, but we can strive to find some sort of equilibrium.

The "Sorcerer's Apprentice" Problem

Someone using Ghostery for the first time is best served by running it with blocking off and the Alert Bubble on. This is like watching a foreign film with subtitles; you're still seeing the same images, but now you can understand the dialog. Do what you normally do for a week or two. Then, if you start tweaking things, it will make a lot more sense. If you don't know what you're doing, it's easy to get in over your head. Watch the movie before you start cutting out chunks. (And the dubbed version doesn't always convey all the nuances of the original.)

Last Man on the Mountain

We see too many people say, "your product totally sucks." When pressed for details, it turns out they installed it alongside a half-dozen other potentially conflicting (and unnecessarily duplicative) add-ons, completely ignored everything they were supposed to read, and (most likely) screwed with a bunch of settings. Then they act surprised when bad things happened. In this scenario, Ghostery gets blamed for a lot of problems that originate elsewhere.

The Upgrade Paradox

Another challenge is that most people really don't like change (but they're attracted to bright, shiny objects). Often, when they transition from one product to another, they can't resist trying to reshape the new one to resemble the old one, even if the reason they left the old one was that they didn't like it. There's comfort in familiarity, and anxiety with the unknown. Ghostery is different from what you're used to. A lot of users won't grasp that at first. Some vendors of "competing" products don't get it, either. They crow about how their product is better at being, well, their product, or tout the virtues of its faster execution times and/or smaller memory footprint, conveniently neglecting to mention those were achieved by doing nowhere near as much, and being nowhere near as effective. The press (and the bloggers) don't always get it right, either, depending on their experience, open-mindedness, and tendencies toward sensationalism. "Why do you think there's a missing feature?" "Because the product I was using before had it."

tl;dr -> tl;dw

The traditional answer involves more (and better) documentation, but I think we need to accept that our audience no longer wants to read anything. A year ago I would have suggested a series of YouTube videos, but even that's a tough sell to the Vine generation.

So, we have the Digital Television Receiver model. There's a special "set up" mode for the first time you turn it on. Its main purpose is to prompt you to perform an initial channel scan. Since the goal is to get you up and running in a hurry, it's supposed to do as little as possible. You're probably never going to use it again, unless you move. Everything else can be accomplished through the regular menus.

and just to be clear.. the propose feature is just an alert to bring that option to the surface rather than seeking it out.. nothing will be on by default.. user will still have to select yes or no to starting that blocking choice.