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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

#661

Post by marcta »

imglorp wrote: post #303
2ndorderthought wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a very good small model to be honest. That said, you might be surprised to learn that some of the models from 3b-9b could probably replace 80% of the things nonvibe coders use chatgpt for. Its a good idea to run small models locally if your computer can host them for privacy and cash saving reasons. But how can you trust Google to autoinstall one on your machine in 2026? I just couldn't do it.

Sure, local models good and yes, there's no way we can trust Google. We can be positive the entire motivation of Chrome is user behavior surveillance. There's not a nano-chance in all the multiverses that Chrome model is doing anything privately. They've gone to extraordinary length to accomplish this. It's not for free.

LLMs are costing Google a ton of money in compute and storage right now. If they can farm any of that off to the users, it makes economical sense.

But yes, there is a 100% chance that logs will get sent back to Google too.

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

#662

Post by wtallis »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #582
croes wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

By that reasoning, any novel/cutting-edge addition to a browser or other software is wrong? Every standard was new at some point.

The question of whether web browsers will one day be expected to normally include an LLM is not at all relevant to the situation at hand, where that absolutely is not the expected or typical behavior of a browser. Google should be asking for consent now even if they expect in several years time to be able to presume consent for this.

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

#663

Post by robinsonb5 »

kennywinker wrote: post #646
ezfe wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A crypto miner needs consent because it burns your battery and CPU power with no benefit to you. This AI model would only be used when you invoke it so the only problem is disk space, which the comment you're replying to acknowledges as a point of issue.

> This AI model would only be used when you invoke it You sure about that? How explicit is the invocation? assuming it’s only run when the user does something (big assumption), does the user know clicking that summarize button is going to bog their system down and crank up their electricity use?

Indeed. Trusting that it will only be processing the user's queries - as opposed to, say, becoming part of a distributed grid of AI processing nodes - isn't a bet I'd be willing to place much money on.

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

#665

Post by roblh »

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…

Yeah, no. I installed a browser, I expect it to install the required components for it to work _as a browser_. I do not need a local AI model for it to do that. If there are features that need that, fine, but I expect it to at the very least ask permission since those are absolutely not required functions. It’s like if Word installed a bunch CAD modeling software in the background. There’s just no way it needs that to function for it’s primary purpose.

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

#666

Post by [deleted] »

roblh wrote: post #665
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…

Yeah, no. I installed a browser, I expect it to install the required components for it to work _as a browser_. I do not need a local AI model for it to do that. If there are features that need that, fine, but I expect it to at the very least ask permission since those are absolutely not required functions. It’s like if Word installed a bunch CAD modeling software in the background. There’s just no way it needs that t…

[deleted]

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

#667

Post by hashseed »

newsoftheday wrote: post #645

This is what I've done after spending some time to look into it, this is for Linux Desktop: Delete Chrome's silent 4 GB AI model file and AI In Chrome, go to: chrome://flags Search for and Disable these: Enables optimization guide on device Prompt API for Gemini Nano AI Mode Open DevTools (F12 or Ctrl+Shift+I). Click the Settings (gear icon). Go to AI Innovations and uncheck Enable AI assistance. For Linux, in a bash…

DevTools uses a server side model, and only after you opt in with explicit consent.

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

#668

Post by wtallis »

esseph wrote: post #600
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nothing new with the browser vendor pushing plugins down our throat which are not browser core features You need to find another browser, if your desire is only browser core features. You have that freedom!! You can do it! On the other hand: I don't think anyone caters to that position, because it's a bad/nonsense position, that users don't want. There are some browsers that come closer to this, but this idea of "b…

> this idea of "browser core features" is, on the face of it, to me, reduction deeply into the absurd. To counter this, the idea that the BROWSER should be doing other things than BROWSE is insane to me. It is very clear that you and I came of age in a very different environment with a very different mindset. The moment somebody starts forcing additional packages, some which may even be larger in scope and code than…

My biggest beef with the browser's unchecked scope creep is that its role as an application platform is fulfilled in a manner that's completely at odds with the original purpose of a browser as a user agent. They're running untrusted third party code by default, letting sites embed spyware, and constantly adding more anti-features. Treating this as normal is insane from an unindoctrinated viewpoint. Acting like people who question this status quo are being unreasonable is an insult to everyone who cares about privacy or security.

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

#669

Post by knollimar »

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…

Framing this as needing "consent" is deeply misguided. It's as silly as claiming that Java installed an ask.com toolbar without your consent. It's just part of the software. You consented to installing the software and having it autoupdate. That covers it.

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

#670

Post by xp84 »

ethagnawl wrote: post #640
jchw wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's additional software that many users didn't ask for, don't want and will not be aware of. Reminds me a bit of back when installing software was a minefield due to all of the integrated "promotions" for things like toolbars, only now they've vertically integrated the unwanted software, cutting out the middleman. Honestly, for most features you could justifiably say its fine. I mean honestly, how large is an Englis…

> That is a far cry from 4 GiB Equating a 4GB file installed without explicit consent to the installation of a language dictionary is comical. That's like saying an unwanted political mailer left in your mailbox is the equivalent of a pallette of hammers left in your driveway.

It sounds like you have a specific number of GB in mind that an app can take up, below which it's totally their business, and above which they need to plead their case, disclose the purpose, and allow me to choose.

What's that number? How did you arrive at it and why?

My Chrome binaries are about 700MB on Mac and 500MB on Windows. Is this below or your line, or are they actually in trouble as soon as they're extracted?

My point is just that it seems there may be an arbitrary limit here that may not be the same for everyone (and 90% of users are nontechnical and thus couldn't give an answer whether 4GB is "worth it" for whatever the features are). Rather than add another whole ecosystem of "Cancel or Allow?" dialogs I'd rather operating systems did a better job of letting users put piggish applications on a strict space budget. Most of the apps on my phone are storing half a gig of "stuff" (called "Documents & Data" but not itemized, and even apps that have none of my 'data' such as browsers), which I can't force them to dump even in an extreme emergency. I can only delete the whole app.

I'm talking about Apple platforms as examples because I use those a lot and with their epic stinginess of SSD, anyone who doesn't pay $400 more than the base model will exhaust their storage within hours to months.

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