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Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

thatprivacyguy.com

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Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#62

Post by tobylane »

scriptsmith wrote: post #31

If Chrome has the #optimization-guide-on-device-model and #prompt-api-for-gemini-nano flags enabled, either because it's part of some Origin Trial / Early Stable Release or something, then web pages will have access to the new Prompt API which allows any webpage to initiate the (one-time) download of the ~2.7 GiB CPU or ~4.0 GiB GPU model using LanguageModel.create() https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/prompt-api Wh…

Those two (and more) exist in chrome://flags in Chrome 147. I'm disabling them now, with the expectation that will prevent the new default.

One option I'm leaving as default is "Use LiteRT-LM runtime for on-device model service inference." Any comment on that?

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#63

Post by jimbob45 »

dotcoma wrote: post #10

Why use a browser from Google or Microsoft in 2026? Why in the world?

What are the alternatives? Only a massively moneyed corp has the resources to fight vulns at acceptable rates. Firefox doesn’t count because they’re being funded by Google.

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#64

Post by mschuster91 »

jve wrote: post #24

> At Chrome's scale, the climate bill for one model push, paid in atmospheric CO2 by the entire planet, is between six thousand and sixty thousand tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions, depending on how many devices receive the push. Environmental analysis for operations? Not a fan of thinking in such terms. > For users on capped mobile data plans, particularly in regions where smartphone-as-only-internet is dominant (m…

> However OS (at least windows) has an way to set network connection as a metered so software can make informed decisions. Also Android has "Data Saver" function which should also be honored by software.

Unfortunately, that automation is unreliable. It doesn't work across operating systems - Windows laptops won't enable data-saver mode when connected to iPhones and macOS laptops won't when connected to Android phones, and neither will enable it when connected to, say, public transport wifi.

And even if the OS has the information, websites can't reliably use it either. Firefox and Safari both don't implement the NetworkInformation API [1].

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/NetworkInfo...

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#65

Post by oriettaxx »

scorpioxy wrote: post #14
ponyous wrote: post #3

The site is currently unavailable 503 so I can't read it. But I wonder, what should you consent to? Every dependency? Every dependency above 1GB?

Maybe consent is not an appropriate term. Perhaps an acknowledgement and a way to say "I don't want this" would be a more suitable approach. I feel like a flag to turn off LLMs is useful. Firefox added something like this in a recent release. I don't know how much they're downloading or how much they run it, nor would I be a good judge if it's necessary or not, but I don't want that functionality in my browser so tur…

the subject has been faced many years ago an super well applied in EU privacy regulations: Google knows it very well, and in super details and I have no doubt they will be fined for this despite all reduction of it thanks to their lobbying (and corruptions, too, in my super personal opinion): this fact well explain EU fines based on company's income.

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#67

Post by mschuster91 »

walletdrainer wrote: post #30

> Google has not, to my knowledge, published any analysis of the welfare impact of this on the populations whose internet access is metered. This is satire, obviously.

Clearly, you've never lived in Germany or other places that still have data caps and slow and unreliable internet connections.

Yes, 4GB of unintended traffic can absolutely wreck someone's finances.

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#68

Post by lmf4lol »

elashri wrote: post #40

[flagged]

I am using Firefox for years now. It's such a splendid experience.

I can recommend the following extensions:

- Youtube Enhancer

- DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials

- Cookie Auto Decline (a MUST for Europeans)

- Slop Evader

- No Gender (a MUST for Germans)

Its a totally different browsing experience than what most people have.

I recently watched my kiddo looking something up with Edge on her laptop. I had to interfere and install Firefox. It was ridicolous!!! The amount of spam on the screen. How people can cope with this is beyond me. Especially if the solution doesn't cost anything. Just Firefox + some free extensions.

edit: because people asked about the No Gender extension:

Germany didn't have “gendered” language, until it was introduced some years ago.

Imagine the sentence: The teachers explain to their pupiles that the managers work only for the shareholders.

in regular German, it would translate to:

Die Lehrer erklärten den Schülern, dass die Manager ausschliesslich für die Anteilhaber arbeiten.

In gendered German, it became:

Die Lehrer:innen erklärten den Schüler:innen, dass die Manager:innen ausschliesslich für die Anteilhaber:innen arbeiten.

For me, it ruins the reading experience.

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#69

Post by StingyJelly »

whizzter wrote: post #7
nottorp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extra power and ram usage without your permission, for example.

Exactly, for all the hate of Windows, I could at least just look for shit named co-pilot and uninstall it for a pretty nice experience on my new computer. Phones aren't always as straightforward (especially jarring as "Google services" are required in Sweden on Android for stuff like mobile identity systems).

This is so absurd... I have to keep an old (rooted in order to hide that adb is enabled) phone connected to my home server just to use such app, because grapheneos without google services is apparently not secure enough.
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