The amount of Google bootlickers and sycophants in this thread is genuinely concerning.
Google Chrome Installed a 4GB AI Model on Your PC
41–50 of 69 posts
Re: Google Chrome Installed a 4GB AI Model on Your PC
#42I'm a big fan of local models, and moving inference from the cloud to local machines is great, but there's a couple potential problems with this. LLMs take significant (V)RAM resources to run (which is in short supply on consumer hardware), and we don't know that Google won't send local conversation logs to their own servers (kind of surprised if they don't). So if you think you're having a private local conversation in Chrome, I wouldn't be so sure.
Re: Google Chrome Installed a 4GB AI Model on Your PC
#43IMO If you're into tech and still use Chrome*, that's on you. If you are not, you probably don't really care unless you need extra space on your PC. *Except in your job, since you probably obligated to use.
Switched from firefox few months ago, I don't like google, but firefox has only few percent of market share currenly, many pages simply do not work properly with it, plus it has bugs on macos (like onmousover stuff), which simply make it unusable. Safari is fine, but also many websites (which sometimes you need to use like banking or gov) are not tested on it. The overall browsers situation is less than ideal.
daily drive Zen on macos with zero issues and quality adblocking support.
Re: Google Chrome Installed a 4GB AI Model on Your PC
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
That does nothing to defend Google since the quality of the model is irrelevant to the accusation.
You'd think that if a technology is so good you don't need to force it on people.
It certainly shouldn't require masses of blank eyed fans all making highly emotional pleads to protect the sensitivity of their favorite logo.
That's gross even by Microsoft standards.
Re: Google Chrome Installed a 4GB AI Model on Your PC
#45I'm sorry but the AI model that was forced to write this article is struggling to explain why this is a problem. I get that a chrome update that suddenly balloons to 4gb+ is stupid, that's fair, but I'm not sure I understand the rest of the issues. They don't like the off-device AI features Google is forcing into everything, but they also don't like the on-device AI features since they don't do enough?
Aside from taking up a lot of space as a web browser, I'm not sure I get it. Their explanation that Apple's version of this is fine but Google's isn't is wild too.
Re: Google Chrome Installed a 4GB AI Model on Your PC
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just the availability wouldn't be that bad from a fingerprinting standpoint (getting one bit that a majority of Chrome users have is just the same bits you already have, usually), except, it also exposes whether the underlying hardware is "eligible," and once it's running, you can also benchmark the language model performance. It's a mess. I think it might also be broken and work in iframes, which would be an even bi…
> really needed a permissions dialog Why?
Users with data caps are an obvious reason, for example, see this frustrated user report here: https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/415181794/chrome-al... .
To your point about `fetch` in the sibling comment; yes, I would also be annoyed by a website which downloaded 4GB in the background without asking me, too.
I don't think this is some moral outrage, to be clear; it's well within Google's rights, it doesn't seem "sketchy" at all, and it is kind of a cool feature, but it feels like they could have done a lot better by just making it opt-in and a little less fingerprintable.
Re: Google Chrome Installed a 4GB AI Model on Your PC
#47This looks like AI-written blather, but it links to an article with useful information by someone who actually checked: https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/gemini/articles/fact-check-google-...
Thanks! Very informative. Lot of new details including the answer from Google and several experiments
Re: Google Chrome Installed a 4GB AI Model on Your PC
#48I'm sorry but the AI model that was forced to write this article is struggling to explain why this is a problem. I get that a chrome update that suddenly balloons to 4gb+ is stupid, that's fair, but I'm not sure I understand the rest of the issues. They don't like the off-device AI features Google is forcing into everything, but they also don't like the on-device AI features since they don't do enough? Aside from tak…
The reality is that the move is great, it's a very cool and nice stuff, just that it takes bandwidth and space without letting the user know.
A solution:
New AI features are available for use offline, they will make you able to translate offline, get answers, summaries, etc, would you like to download / install them (~4 GB)?
It is going to fix the experience in the UI. It's a significant misstep by Google in its form (probably lazy/hasted/bureaucratic release), but on the move itself, this is actually a very user-friendly initiative from Google.
It's quite unfair in that specific case to say that Google = evil, and when Qwen = good. It's just about informing the user better so the bandwidth and space is not wasted. Giving user choice.
They will fix it eventually, especially after raising the issue.
But shouting here "Google = bad, me uninstall Google, if you use Google Chrome you are an idiot" are not a productive feedback for a product owner there.
Re: Google Chrome Installed a 4GB AI Model on Your PC
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, you could even do something like this: await fetch("/multi-gigabyte-download"); It even works on non-Chrome browsers.
i think the point is that one actually burns disk space, while the other is just a nuisance for people on plans with limited data
using a browser is an easy way to burn disk space and limited data
light browsing is not a thing unless you somehow ensure javascript is disabled and all downloads are blocked
Re: Google Chrome Installed a 4GB AI Model on Your PC
#50I checked, and I do have the 4GB file on my system.
The “Local AI” toggle is enabled. Chrome never asked for my consent to enable it.
Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/S4WTHxM
The 4GB file is located in C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\OptGuideOnDeviceModel\2025.8.8.1141
Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/wvTqfQM