Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thatprivacyguy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 1001 posts

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

#342

Post by Markoff »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #263
mft_ wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I install Chrome, I expect it to take a few hundred MBs and then only take up additional space in a controlled and transparent manner - for its cache, for example. For me, secretly adding 4GB after installation is a bit too much. If you're okay with 4GB being added, where would you draw a line? What if it downloaded a 40GB file? 400GB?

Personally I draw the line where Chrome becomes worse than alternatives, and then I switch. Lately Firefox has been getting better, but I still prefer Chrome for almost all my needs, so I stick to it. This barely even makes a difference to me. If it was 400GB however it would make a difference to me, and I would make more of an effort to switch to something else.

I fail to see scenario where Chrome is better than almost any Chromium alternative with exemption of Google account sync.

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

#343

Post by Aachen »

Zekio wrote: post #273
derangedHorse wrote: post #272

Does anyone else find the writing in the article to be overdramatic? Including a 4gb is a negligible amount of space for current hardware and Chrome is not known as the browser to run on resource constrained devices. To put 4gb in context, I currently have 2 *tabs* open that nearly take up 4gb. The fact Chrome also has a way to disable this makes it kind of a nothingburger in my opinion. > The roughly 4 GB × N device…

4gb isn't really a negligible amount, given the amount of desktops and laptops sold with just a 256gb ssd

Exactly. Nand is expensive. I upgraded what my laptop came with but after installing a few games, cloning repositories over the years, various projects I've done, and other regular use, it's perpetually full. 4GB is probably about half the space I have free at any given time

Which apparently means it'll never install btw, even if I were to run Chrome. Another comment said they check for 22GB free space

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

#344

Post by Markoff »

RaiausderDose wrote: post #295
tobylane wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those two (and more) exist in chrome://flags in Chrome 147. I'm disabling them now, with the expectation that will prevent the new default. One option I'm leaving as default is "Use LiteRT-LM runtime for on-device model service inference." Any comment on that?

I'm on Chrome 147 too and disabled: "optimization-guide-on-device-model" - Enables optimization guide on device "prompt-api-for-gemini-nano" - Prompt API for Gemini Nano - Prompt API for Gemini Nano with Multimodal Input and deleted weights.bin and the 2025.x folder in "OptGuideOnDeviceModel" Will report if Chrome 148 downloads the model again.

thanks, went to flags in Vivaldi and just in case disabled all flags containing "gemini" and first five results for "model"

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

#346

Post by yearolinuxdsktp »

toyg wrote: post #233
tzury wrote: post #59

Well, npm install … did worse

that's a willing act - you are actively asking npm to download something, and accepting it might be terrible for you. Here chrome is just installing things behind your back, whether you really want it or not.

Never use “npm install”, only “npm ci”. Using “npm install” is a willing act to run fresh exploits.

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

#349

Post by Aachen »

pu_pe wrote: post #173
vrganj wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our planet is literally dying. The oceans are boiling [0], marine life is dying [1]. Land close to the water will be land under water soon [2]. The ice caps are melting and setting free all sorts of diseases. [3] Large parts of our planet on fire all the time now, here's one from Australia from this year [4], but I'm sure you've read about wildfires in Australia last year, California every year, Greece last year etc…

Why do you attribute to capitalism an issue that is much more fundamental than it? People want more stuff and better lives, it's as simple as that. Even hunger/gatherer societies brought themselves to extinction multiple times in the past, and I doubt the USSR would have fared better against climate change. Technological progress is also societal progress. If we embraced degrowth in the 1800's (there was a ton of pol…

> People want more stuff and better lives, it's as simple as that.

Not everyone wants this at the cost of others. It's not as simple as that / not a necessary consequence of our desire to find clever solutions to solve everyday inconveniences

Post reply on HN