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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

#881

Post by KoolKat23 »

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.

Honestly this is 2026. Chrome on my phone is nearly 2gb. Google on my phone is 1gb. 4gb storage isn't outrageous, Windows barely runs on anything below 128gb storage. Right now my phone has 445gb unused memory and usage isn't likely to go up much. My PlayStation eats 500gb for breakfast. Heck I use a 2011 Thinkpad for casual use and it should still be fine with it.

This is also GOOGLE chrome, it serves their ends, in the past that was to render internet unimpeded (they saw a need then), needs change. I'd rather models serve most requests locally anyway, so long as it's not destroying my battery life.

Remember the whole chrome-RAM-gate saga? This shouldn't be shocking to anyone. PC's shipping 8gb ram, Google removing ad blocker extensions, these should be the real rally points.

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

#882

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

sgbeal wrote: post #855

The following seems to keep Chrome from re-downloading this beast: # From one's $HOME dir: rm -fr ./.config/google-chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceModel mkdir -p ./.config/google-chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceModel touch ./.config/google-chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceModel/weights.bin chmod 0400 ./.config/google-chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceModel/weights.bin chmod 0500 ./.config/google-chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceModel Adapt as appropriate for your O…

FYI, this doesn't appear to work on macOS, unless I'm lucky enough that Chrome has never installed anything related to this on my machine. I don't even have a ~/.config/google-chrome directory; it's possible Google is using some Apple-alternative to that standard.

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

#883

Post by account42 »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #417
heavyset_go wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been consuming 15+ years of anti-Mozilla rants anytime it or Firefox are mentioned online. It's how you get things like "Browser monocultures are an issue, so don't use Chrome (Blink), use Brave (Chromium (Blink)) instead!" said in earnest.

its almost like Google, a marketing company with a serious requirement for data mining, could be talking shit about Mozilla...

Why would Google talk shit about their subsidiary's product.

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

#884

Post by account42 »

liminis wrote: post #551
thyristan wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. This is Google doing underhanded Google-things. Why the hell would anyone trust them in the first place?

Google's "don't be evil" motto already felt ironic over a decade ago, long before they even replaced it with "do the right thing [for shareholder value?]".

You have to understand it to work like in many RPG games - you get to murder and pillage from time to time as long as you donate some of your ill gotten gains to move your alignment back to "neutral".

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

#886

Post by account42 »

pu_pe wrote: post #116
wartywhoa23 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should I reminder you what unlimited growth means and how it ends up in biology? Society/technology is no exception.

No need for unlimited growth, just normal sustainable progress like the one that allows you and me to communicate here after centuries of technological progress.

The "AI" craze has been very far from normal or sustainable.

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

#887

Post by breakingcups »

estimator7292 wrote: post #757
qudiqudi wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because due to Google having a near-monopoly on the entire goddamn Internet, a shocking number of websites and services will refuse to work with non-chrome browsers.

Apart from two exceptions about 5 years ago, I've yet to encounter any of these sites in practice in Firefox.

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

#888

Post by jibal »

gremlinunderway wrote: post #769
xp84 wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 extracte…

What a completely asinine post. I'm sick of seemingly smart people in the technical world think they are being so clever by trying to literally rehash the continuum fallacy. You hear this literally everytime anyone even so much as suggests a standard, norm or god forbid a regulation. It seems especially common among libertarian types who think governance of any kind of simply impossible because of it. Just because th…

Agreed. If anything your comment is too charitable. This is just one of the GP's highly sophistic comments here. Considering how he is exploiting the sorites paradox, I wouldn't be surprised if he bases his sophism on Zeno's paradox from time to time.

Excuse me while I go count the hairs on my chin to see if they are >= MIN_BEARD_THRESHOLD.

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

#889

Post by boredhedgehog »

Arelius wrote: post #701
xp84 wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 extracte…

> My Chrome binaries are about 700MB on Mac and 500MB on Windows That's kind-of the point though right? An application that has been say It'd be similarly unreasonable for a video game that once took 50 GB, to suddenly decide to take 400 GB.

That depends on how you count, though.

Local storage and cache only have limits relative to available disk space in Chrome, IIRC, and can easily bloat to 100 GB without intervention. Personally I think that's a design flaw and they need customizable hard limits as well, but web browsers wasting space without asking is not a new or sudden development.

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

#890

Post by abc123abc123 »

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…

Incorrect. What you consent to, is the software, with its intended use and design. It is not consent to allowing the vendor to install what ever software, for what ever use case, of infinite size, forever. With your interpretation, MS could install a torrent client, child porn or what ever, and that cleraly shows that your interpretation leads to a reductio ad absurdum.

When I download a web browser, it is reasonable to assume a piece of software that allows me to view web pages. Not an AI model.

The correct way to handle this, is for the vendor to announce the feature, the size and capacity required, and offer an opt-in, and not an opt-out.

This is beyond dispute.

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