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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

#351
post #172
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…

Have you ever made a decision to NOT download something, turn on your computer, experiment, etc based on your perceived impact on the planet? I mean this should (and is) be tackled at the source: 0/low emission energy generation and not consumer having to think about these decisions. Sustainable data centers using renewables etc. But not that the companies should associate/evaluate/consider bytes downloaded with envi…

> this should (and is) be tackled at the source: 0/low emission energy generation and not consumer having to think about these decisions.

Until we're at that point though, the 'winners' in this market society (that wield unimaginable amounts of money = resources) such as Google could certainly think about consequences of their choices. And they usually do to some extent, I'm not saying they don't, just that electric supply and demand has two sides to it

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

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then you don't have to use it.

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

#353
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly, you've never lived in Germany or other places that still have data caps and slow and unreliable internet connections. Yes, 4GB of unintended traffic can absolutely wreck someone's finances.

Or places with collateral damage due to failures of German ISPs and state... That is many other parts of Europe while roaming... 4GB is significant cut of the roaming data allocated...

Some time ago friends were pranking each other with 32GB favicon.ico files this was a thing and one of them was on mobile in Germany. Turns out it would keep downloading in the background even if leaving the page. Their account was locked and had a massive bill for roaming charges. That prank went horribly wrong.

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

#354

I use brave. Firefox doesn't work in my qemu VM with (none pass through) hardware acceleration, it just crashes the VM. Brave has always just worked for me and seems light on memory usage. Dunno why anyone would use chrome.

If you're not aware already, there's also Brave origin: https://support.brave.app/hc/en-us/articles/38561489788173-W...

A lighter Brave.

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

#355

"Silently installs" is misleading. They are including a file in the package which is presumably related to the functionality of the software. I don't use chrome for a long list of reasons but it is not standard or expected to get consent for that.

This feels deliberately reductive

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

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a small model, so what utility can I / Google expect from it? What is the on-board model used for?

It's not a very good small model to be honest. That said, you might be surprised to learn that some of the models from 3b-9b could probably replace 80% of the things nonvibe coders use chatgpt for. Its a good idea to run small models locally if your computer can host them for privacy and cash saving reasons. But how can you trust Google to autoinstall one on your machine in 2026? I just couldn't do it.

Half of the reason to use local AI is to circumvent the censorship that Google, OpenAI and so on have. I don't want this Google crap on my computer.

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

#358
post #332

> Energy intensity of network data transfer: 0.06 kWh per GB, the mid-band of Pärssinen et al. (2018) "Environmental impact assessment of online advertising", Science of The Total Environment [14]. The paper reports a 0.04-0.10 kWh/GB range depending on the share of fixed-line vs mobile transfer and inclusion of end-user device energy. 0.06 is a defensible mid-point. 2018? An estimate from 8 years ago is going to be…

You think the energy cost to transfer has dropped by 10 X in eight years? Why?

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

#359
post #332

> Energy intensity of network data transfer: 0.06 kWh per GB, the mid-band of Pärssinen et al. (2018) "Environmental impact assessment of online advertising", Science of The Total Environment [14]. The paper reports a 0.04-0.10 kWh/GB range depending on the share of fixed-line vs mobile transfer and inclusion of end-user device energy. 0.06 is a defensible mid-point. 2018? An estimate from 8 years ago is going to be…

Agreed. Also, complaining about the climate impact of an AI model download while opening your post with an ai generated image is peak hypocrisy. Did not bother to read the rest.

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

#360
post #276

Framing 4GB of data moving in a world of petabytes of traffic as a specific environmental disaster is kind of a stretch, regardless of whether we want the model.

Chrome is used by about 3.8 billion people [1]. So, if this is rolled out to every chrome user over the next year or two, this would generate about 15 Exabytes of traffic. It's difficult to find accurate, useful numbers on this, but lets assume 29 grams of CO2e per GB, this would be about 450k tons of CO2e. This in turn, equates to average household CO2 expenditure of almost 300k households. So make your own judgemen…

This is about the same as each of those people streaming a movie to their TV. There's no there there.
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