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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

#152
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what the "No Gender" extension is about and why it is a must?

I'd like to know too. I struggled to understand the description of the extension - is it an anti-woke thing, or some sort of modern approach to German removing the traditional (i.e. non-political) genderisation of some words, or both, or something else?

Example: Reader

In German: Leser (masculine)

Possible forms of inclusive speech: Leser*innen, Leser:in, Leser_innen

This extension removes these possible forms of inclusive speech. Arguably they hurt the reading flow and the German language has the generic masculine. However, proponents of inclusive speech feel that the generic masculine isn't inclusive.

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

#153
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what the "No Gender" extension is about and why it is a must?

I'd like to know too. I struggled to understand the description of the extension - is it an anti-woke thing, or some sort of modern approach to German removing the traditional (i.e. non-political) genderisation of some words, or both, or something else?

A bit of both? Imagine every time you read the word "actor", it is instead spelled something like "actor:ress", or "actor_ress", or "actor*ress" (because the separator hasn't been standardised).

Personally I'm in favour of it, but I will concede that if it's done enough times throughout the text (as German has way more gendered nouns in common use than English) it does come with the downside of breaking the reading flow.

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

#154
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what the "No Gender" extension is about and why it is a must?

I'd like to know too. I struggled to understand the description of the extension - is it an anti-woke thing, or some sort of modern approach to German removing the traditional (i.e. non-political) genderisation of some words, or both, or something else?

The first. In German, many words that refer to a person (e.g. Fahrer/Fahrerin, male/female driver) have a plural which is identical to the male singular. For a while now, many writers have used a typographic style to make the plural gender-neutral by writing the male plural, an asterisk, and then the female plural suffix (e.g. Fahrer*innen).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_star

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

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea but when I mention Firefox my colleagues under 35 or so literally think I'm joking.

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.

The more time goes on the more I feel like I live on a different planet. Even things like "shouldn't you be able to decide what software you run on the stuff you own?" gets blank stares.

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

#157

One upside to this is that it doesn't use Gemma and instead uses Gemini. So at least for Gemini Nano (apparently called XS internally by Google) it means that the weights are now de facto open and you no longer need a current Android phone to get the latest and best model in this class. This also makes it the only open American frontier-level model right now.

Can you provide any sources for that? I'd like to learn more about this open frontier model.

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

#158
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some parts of the anti-AI movement are becoming so unhinged that now any use of compute is considered an environmental threat. This degrowth mentality needs to die.

If it's emissions they worry about, then it's anything emitting. Are they against washing machines too? Or are they just grandfathered in?

Don't be disingenuous. Not all energy is created equally.

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

#160
post #10

Why use a browser from Google or Microsoft in 2026? Why in the world?

I have no idea but when I mention Firefox my colleagues under 35 or so literally think I'm joking.

When Google stuffs AI into everything, people shrug. Can't expect anything else from big tech.

When Firefox does it, it sparks outrage across the internet, with entire forums filled with people vowing to leave Firefox forever and switching to something like Waterfor or Ilp/Zorp/Floop instead.

As a result, searching for experiences other people had with Firefox makes it sound like hell on earth, while people have little more to say about Chrome other than "Google gonna Google, but it's fast at least".

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