Earlier quoted context omitted.
Extra power and ram usage without your permission, for example.
Don't install chrome in the first place then
I'm logged in to work in Chrome and to personal stuff in Firefox :)
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
#42Framing 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.
The next Netflix breakout show will burn this planet to the grounds :)
Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent
#43Why 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.
Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent
#44Why use a browser from Google or Microsoft in 2026? Why in the world?
What browsers would you recommend? I use Brave but it's still Chromium under the hood. It's the only one that I never had trouble with adblock though. Also lets me play youtube on mobile when my screen is locked.
I still use Firefox. It does all I need with no ads. That's nice.
Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent
#45Why use a browser from Google or Microsoft in 2026? Why in the world?
It's the browser that annoys me the least. Almost everything just works.
Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent
#46This is a bit disingenuous. If you install Chrome, you install Chrome and all it's parts. They don't ask your consent for individual parts because that would be absurd. If you don't want Chrome and all its parts, don't use it.
Chrome is the default browser on Android.
One would imagine that the model could be shared on Android and not be part of chrome. Maybe this way it’s simpler or is compatible with regulations.
Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read the article, it's not about that, but a mere 4GB of storage.
Oh and why is it there? Do you really think it's not loaded and executed automatically by default, so some Google executive can justify their "AI" spend?
I don’t. Do you have any actual evidence they’re doing that beyond the vibe?
Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent
#48The site is currently unavailable 503 so I can't read it. But I wonder, what should you consent to? Every dependency? Every dependency above 1GB?
Maybe consent is not an appropriate term. Perhaps an acknowledgement and a way to say "I don't want this" would be a more suitable approach. I feel like a flag to turn off LLMs is useful. Firefox added something like this in a recent release. I don't know how much they're downloading or how much they run it, nor would I be a good judge if it's necessary or not, but I don't want that functionality in my browser so tur…
Isn't that asking for consent?
Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent
#49> At Chrome's scale, the climate bill for one model push, paid in atmospheric CO2 by the entire planet, is between six thousand and sixty thousand tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions, depending on how many devices receive the push. Environmental analysis for operations? Not a fan of thinking in such terms. > For users on capped mobile data plans, particularly in regions where smartphone-as-only-internet is dominant (m…
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.
Should I reminder you what unlimited growth means and how it ends up in biology? Society/technology is no exception.
Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent
#50Why use a browser from Google or Microsoft in 2026? Why in the world?
Because ladybird isn’t alpha yet, and Firefox is a mess.
What mess? I only ever used Chrome as my main browser for a short while when Firefox had become rather bloaty and had slow JS, and Chrome was small and nimble. But that was something like fifteen years ago. Firefox works, is plenty fast these days, and only eats most of my RAM compared to Chrome which takes all of it, and serves me a web devoid of almost all ads and most trackers.