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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

#191

Post by qsera »

echoangle wrote: post #106
qsera wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox added split view where you can look at two (or more) webpages side by side. This is a lifesaver when you have to fill up a form looking up stuff from another page!

Isn’t this kind of the job of the OS windowing system? It’s maybe slightly nicer to share the window chrome for two tabs but it’s not like looking at two browser tabs in parallel was impossible before.

Sure, but this is a lot nicer because when they are separate windows, and you have more windows, and if you have to alt-tab to check something else, it is a bit flow-breaking to bring these exact two windows back on top.

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

#193

Post by vrganj »

pu_pe wrote: post #173
vrganj wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our planet is literally dying. The oceans are boiling [0], marine life is dying [1]. Land close to the water will be land under water soon [2]. The ice caps are melting and setting free all sorts of diseases. [3] Large parts of our planet on fire all the time now, here's one from Australia from this year [4], but I'm sure you've read about wildfires in Australia last year, California every year, Greece last year etc…

Why do you attribute to capitalism an issue that is much more fundamental than it? People want more stuff and better lives, it's as simple as that. Even hunger/gatherer societies brought themselves to extinction multiple times in the past, and I doubt the USSR would have fared better against climate change. Technological progress is also societal progress. If we embraced degrowth in the 1800's (there was a ton of pol…

Because capitalism ties together better lives an ideological belief in unbounded growth.

Will people's lives really be better once they're drowning or choking on wildfire smoke? But hey, at least they had cheap junk!

It's possible to have better lives as well as societal progress without endless growth. Technological progress, too, doesn't have to mean burning our oceans. We just gotta actually think about the costs and consequences of our actions.

Not every technological development is inherently good. Sometimes the cost is not worth the result. I posit the cost of AI so far has been astronomical, higher than anything else in living memory. The results on the other hand have been rather middling.

This is my issue. A cost/benefit analysis, not a strict no to progress.

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

#194

Post by lmf4lol »

tomtomtom777 wrote: post #87
lmf4lol wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Can you explain what the "No Gender" extension is about and why it is a must?

I edited my comment to include an answer to your question.

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

#196

Post by 2ndorderthought »

shaunpud wrote: post #168
elashri wrote: post #40

[flagged]

Switched over to Waterfox recently, nice alternative with some added extras for privacy etc.

Isn't waterfox owned by an ad company? Might as well be the Google of the fire fox browsers.

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

#197

Post by nl »

I think this is a bad framing.

Javascript running on a page can use a feature that requires a model to be downloaded.

I have pages that use it, or other LLM models via LiteRT or HuggingFace transformers.js.

I try to warn the user, but that is my responsibility as a page author. I like that this is enabling the web platform to remain competitive.

The author is pulling a long bow by trying to claim this is some GDPR violation. Have they ever used the web? There are inefficient sites everywhere, with autoplaying video etc.

4GB isn't nothing, but if a page wants to use it then hopefully it is useful to the user!

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

#198

Post by sgbeal »

Jleagle wrote: post #56
tthu1 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a lot of traffic to you? 2.5 million downloads of 4 GB are 10 PB of traffic. I think there are be a lot more than 2.5 million Chrome users in the world.

You only download it when some JS requests it for the first time, most people will never have it.

> You only download it when some JS requests it for the first time, most people will never have it.

i certainly never activated it willfully. i use Chrome only as a fallback testing platform for web dev - a handful of times per month - yet both Chrome Stable and Chrome Unstable had installed this 4GB monstrosity in my home dir. 8GB of junk i'd never used. Both have since been uninstalled and replaced with Chromium.

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

#199

Post by 2ndorderthought »

bluehex wrote: post #164
elashri wrote: post #40

[flagged]

I use Firefox as my main browser but occasionally run into Chrome requirements for certain web apps so end up begrudgingly installing it. I'm in the habit of going straight to the chrome flags page and turning off all this junk exactly because disk usage of chrome is ridiculous otherwise.

What's another 4gb of disk space when computer hardware prices are soaring into unobtanium?

I hate how much companies don't care about efficiency or their customers. It's like windows 11 requiring like 2 more GB of RAM just to see your desktop, what an upgrade, yuck.

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

#200

Post by qurren »

elashri wrote: post #40

[flagged]

... and it takes up 50% CPU on 16 cores just to run a video call. Laptop battery drains in 30 minutes.

Chrome doesn't do that. I literally can't use Firefox anywhere I don't have a power socket.

My laptop also becomes a toaster.

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