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

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

#561

Post by sethops1 »

phs318u wrote: post #315
RaiausderDose wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on Chrome 147 too and disabled: "optimization-guide-on-device-model" - Enables optimization guide on device "prompt-api-for-gemini-nano" - Prompt API for Gemini Nano - Prompt API for Gemini Nano with Multimodal Input and deleted weights.bin and the 2025.x folder in "OptGuideOnDeviceModel" Will report if Chrome 148 downloads the model again.

If you touch those files into existence and chown to root and chmod to 0, it shouldn’t be able to ever overwrite them right?

You want to use chattr +i (make the empty file immutable)

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

#562

Post by radicalbyte »

Schiendelman wrote: post #358
ben_w wrote: post #332

> Energy intensity of network data transfer: 0.06 kWh per GB, the mid-band of Pärssinen et al. (2018) "Environmental impact assessment of online advertising", Science of The Total Environment [14]. The paper reports a 0.04-0.10 kWh/GB range depending on the share of fixed-line vs mobile transfer and inclusion of end-user device energy. 0.06 is a defensible mid-point. 2018? An estimate from 8 years ago is going to be…

You think the energy cost to transfer has dropped by 10 X in eight years? Why?

Eight years ago my internet was using a current over a copper wire. Now it's light through glass. The latter is much more efficient especially over longer distances.

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

#563

Post by charcircuit »

throwway120385 wrote: post #441
bityard wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company I work at has several environments and hundreds of VDI users in each environment. Chrome is the default browser in all of them. By my rough napkin math, this one small change by Google will eat up at least 15 terabytes of new disk space in total. (I sure hope we are using deduplication at the physical storage layer...)

It's fine. Network and disk space are free, right?

Compared to human labor it is.

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

#564

Post by [deleted] »

rafram wrote: post #513
sheept wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can already trigger a 2 GB model download with the Summarizer API[0], which is already shipped in Chrome. Summarizer.create() [0]: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/summarizer-api#model-do... I think this is a distinct model from the Prompt API, since the other shipped AI APIs use fine tuned models.

Both of them say they use Gemini Nano.

[deleted]

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

#565

Post by crumpled »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #527
crumpled wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most users aren't even going to know that this is here. Web developers will expose this capability to the user. The devs will have to determine if the model is delivering what they need. It's good to have something to work with if these Web APIs are going to be part of a standard. I suppose this means that ALL the browser vendors are likely to implement something

> I suppose this means that ALL the browser vendors are likely to implement something Mozilla has taken a strong stand against the prompt api.

I had to dig around to see where they took the stand.

https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1213#i...

Mozilla makes great points. Even if the API is model agnostic, which it ought to be designed as from the very beginning to even be considered a spec, models can act vastly different.

Mozilla didn't say this but the user should at least be presented an option to choose which model (at least once) starting from day one, even if your browser only has one option available. That's assuming a universe where Google plans on actually being concerned about standards adoption.

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

#566

Post by wahnfrieden »

crazygringo wrote: post #560

Framing this as needing "consent" is deeply misguided. It's as silly as claiming that Microsoft Word installed an English language spellcheck dictionary without your consent. It's just part of the software. You consented to installing the software and having it autoupdate. That covers it. Now we can argue whether or not it's an appropriate amount of disk space or bandwidth to use, but that's just a reasonable practic…

You're missing that this is anti-AI activism

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

#567

Post by [deleted] »

crazygringo wrote: post #560

Framing this as needing "consent" is deeply misguided. It's as silly as claiming that Microsoft Word installed an English language spellcheck dictionary without your consent. It's just part of the software. You consented to installing the software and having it autoupdate. That covers it. Now we can argue whether or not it's an appropriate amount of disk space or bandwidth to use, but that's just a reasonable practic…

[deleted]

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

#568

Post by croes »

crazygringo wrote: post #560

Framing this as needing "consent" is deeply misguided. It's as silly as claiming that Microsoft Word installed an English language spellcheck dictionary without your consent. It's just part of the software. You consented to installing the software and having it autoupdate. That covers it. Now we can argue whether or not it's an appropriate amount of disk space or bandwidth to use, but that's just a reasonable practic…

A spellchecker is a standard function of a text program.

Since when is an AI part of the browser?

On top it’s another abuse of their market domination. What if users prefer other models?

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

#569

Post by croes »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #566
crazygringo wrote: post #560

Framing this as needing "consent" is deeply misguided. It's as silly as claiming that Microsoft Word installed an English language spellcheck dictionary without your consent. It's just part of the software. You consented to installing the software and having it autoupdate. That covers it. Now we can argue whether or not it's an appropriate amount of disk space or bandwidth to use, but that's just a reasonable practic…

You're missing that this is anti-AI activism

Maybe it’s pro-browser activism.

A browser should render web pages not bring its own AI

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

#570

Post by oaiey »

crazygringo wrote: post #560

Framing this as needing "consent" is deeply misguided. It's as silly as claiming that Microsoft Word installed an English language spellcheck dictionary without your consent. It's just part of the software. You consented to installing the software and having it autoupdate. That covers it. Now we can argue whether or not it's an appropriate amount of disk space or bandwidth to use, but that's just a reasonable practic…

It is changing the product significantly. I wanted/consented to a browser. Nothing more. Agreeable, nothing new with the browser vendor pushing plugins down our throat which are not browser core features, nevertheless not right.
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