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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

#711

Post by BizarroLand »

grayhatter wrote: post #695
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 it around consent is unnecessarily inflammatory and makes it harder to have a discussion, not easier. For me the most significant problem is the lack of consent. I assume it's just not how you want to frame the problem. Ignoring the problematic parts or behavior of some sort of behavior is a common problem in modern software, and it's actually what the article is complaining about.

Exactly this. My issue with Microslop isn't that they're using AI, that is its own can of worms.

It's the fact that they were forcing it into MY computer, using MY bandwidth for THEIR profit goals. The lack of consent was the final nail in the coffin for me, no computer in my house uses Windows now, and it will at best be a long time before that changes.

I got rid of Chrome ages ago as well. Chrome's only redeeming feature is its user base. It's slower, uses more system resources, ugly as a browser, and now its an AI rapist too.

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

#712

Post by davb »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #691
qudiqudi wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not force a light-weight browser and prohibit Chrome?

That would create vastly more support issues. You don't get to choose the software your users need.

Indeed. We look after a huge, very diverse set of users (university science faculty - many thousands in our faculty, but tens of thousands across all faculties and professional services teams). According to https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share Chrome has over 65% market share for desktops - not supporting Chrome would be overly restrictive.

Our users interact with a huge array of internal and external sites and web apps, virtually all of which will be tested on Chrome. Our LMS, collaboration tools, internal apps, SIEM tooling, HR systems, ERP, knowledge exchange partner portals - it's all been tested on, and works with, Chrome. And we're not in a position to force thousands of vendors to make sure their applications are standards compliant and work in less popular browsers (as much as we might like to). Not to mention the deluge of tickets we'd be dealing with when incompatibilities arise; banning Chrome would cripple us.

Google have backed us into a corner with this one by making a careless default choice that takes advantage of their market dominance and forces us to work around their decision.

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

#713

Post by HDBaseT »

TheServitor wrote: post #188
oriettaxx wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not agree: I live by the sea and this is exactly the answer I get when I talk about trash in the sea. I personally appreciate even more that kind of "stretch" then the privacy one (which could be another "stretch" on getting closer to 1984 scenario)

I guess you can write an article about every new gigabyte released, and we can use more gigabytes talking about it, but other than that I don't see that any one gigabyte of software I don't want is especially more noteworthy than any other gigabyte of software I don't want. An xBox game can be 50+ gigs. Millions of gamers. Fire up the presses! I'm not at all saying nothing matters so we shouldn't care. I just disagre…

[dead]

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

#714

Post by pocksuppet »

Dig1t wrote: post #671
ljm wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle I agree, but chrome has an auto-update setup and using that mechanism to download several GBs of data that is not critical to the app itself is cause for question. Chrome is not entitled to my disk space just because I installed it and Microsoft has been excoriated for the exact same behaviour with AI.

>Chrome is not entitled to my disk space just because I installed it When you install any program it becomes entitled to your disk space, by the definition of installation. If you don’t like the program, you can just uninstall it and it’ll no longer take up your disk space.

This is a good point, given there is no shortage of alternative browsers, even if there is a relative paucity of alternative browser engines.

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

#715

Post by HDBaseT »

bcjdjsndon wrote: post #254
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.

More data moves in your average playstation system update than that. Steam probably transmits more in a morning than that

Valve published some numbers of this.

11.42 petabytes per hour, and roughly 190,000 GB per minute and 100 exabytes delivered in 2025.

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

#716

Post by oriettaxx »

stevenally wrote: post #705
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…

They are abusing our trust. That's the issue.

not just that, unfortunately

This is just today

"Tech giants Microsoft, Google and xAI say they will allow the United States federal government access to their new artificial intelligence models for national security testing." https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/5/5/microsoft-google-...

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

#717

Post by abubakir1997 »

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…

Its not misleading, AI models (unlike English spelling check) has the potential to mine data on users and invade privacy all under the name of "training the model". I am very skeptical of AI models. Governments and big corp have the ability to exploit AI models and none of them a righteous for us to feel safe from a move like that.

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

#718

Post by zachrip »

abubakir1997 wrote: post #717
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…

Its not misleading, AI models (unlike English spelling check) has the potential to mine data on users and invade privacy all under the name of "training the model". I am very skeptical of AI models. Governments and big corp have the ability to exploit AI models and none of them a righteous for us to feel safe from a move like that.

Local models exist as part of the solution to privacy invasion. Not saying google has never been nefarious, but the whole point of local models is that your data doesn't leave your device.

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

#719

Post by ToValueFunfetti »

grayhatter wrote: post #695
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 it around consent is unnecessarily inflammatory and makes it harder to have a discussion, not easier. For me the most significant problem is the lack of consent. I assume it's just not how you want to frame the problem. Ignoring the problematic parts or behavior of some sort of behavior is a common problem in modern software, and it's actually what the article is complaining about.

I don't think this is a question of framing or ignoring problematic behavior at all. I'm quite certain that you wouldn't find it anywhere near comparably egregious if Google added a new developer option without your consent- the most significant problem is the 4GB and the LLM. And, of course, you did consent to their software terms. You are free to switch browsers. What does consent have to do with this?

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

#720

Post by hackyhacky »

dylan604 wrote: post #652
hackyhacky wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wanted/consented to a browser. Nothing more. I agree. I want just a browser. No non-browser-related features, such as JavaScript, CSS, WebRTC, WebGPU, Wasm, etc. Nope, just browsing. Edit: /s, obviously

That's a dumb argument to make as all of those things are used to render the browsing experience. You can disagree with them being necessary or not, but they are part of the experience. You'd be much better off arguing you wanted/consented to a browser, but you got 3 toolbars installed as well and a couple of extensions that report back every keystroke to their respective mothership.

I think you missed my sarcasm. Sorry if I was being too subtle. My intent was to point out that "just a browser" is a meaningless phrase as the functionality of browsers changes.
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