I launch it almost daily. Last Steam (on Linux) proper update was weeks ago. I think a new version of Proton was released like a week ago, though.

It's not a frequent occurrence, unless I have too many games installed, but then those are the downloaded games updating stuff, not Steam. Uninstall the ones you're not going to play in a while if that's becoming a problem.

You can also turn off auto-updates for specific games

Downloading the same browser engine that everyone else uses too time and time again as more bugs and security issues are found in it...

Wait, when is this occuring? I don't recall any installer downloading every other day. Is this something from maybe being on the beta branch of Steam or something? Or am I just missing this?

Feels like every time I open Steam I'm waiting for the latest version to unpack...

Sounds like you're using the Steam Beta Client, which does update very often. Maybe switching back to the stable branch would be better suited for you.

I'm not on the beta client. It still gets updates every few days.

Oh, that's odd. But I also have Steam launch at startup so maybe it's doing something in the background before I open it. I don't think I've really ever seen this unpacking thing unless I maybe am installing a Steam client update periodically

That's a glitch i faced on my previous pc and fixed it by fully uninstalling.

Steam redownloads the client when it shuts down "dirty" to fix itself, but to me it was happening basically every time.