this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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98
Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent — That Privacy Guy! (www.thatprivacyguy.com)
submitted 20 hours ago by byzxor@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] XLE@piefed.social 25 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

Unnecessarily long article (which says "4GB" 33 times, and the complete phrase "4GB AI model" ten times)... Once or twice was all I needed.

But the article author(s) came across a good point. If pushed out to ~15% of Chrome users without consent:

  • That'd be 500 million people
  • It would be 2 exabytes of data
  • 120 GWh of energy, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of about 36,000 average UK households
  • 30,000 tonnes CO2 emitted, roughly the annual emissions of 6,500 cars

And that's just for the initial data push. Models need ✨updates!✨

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 17 points 18 hours ago

The download is the title and what everyone is latching onto, but few are seeing the other problems, like how it secretly installed that model without user acceptance, how it uses obscurity to hide the model, how it will reinstall if you just delete it (fortunately there's an uninstall process linked in the comments, does that include uninstalling Chrome?). And then how it pretends to be an extra AI thing on the browser but apparently will be used for any searching. Which is more energy use since it isn't local, it's just using the weights in storage.

It's all bad, even if it wasn't AI. It's what malware does.

[–] Brad@beehaw.org 22 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Here's the link from that article that explains how to disable and remove it, since the text of the article doesn't include it.

https://pureinfotech.com/stop-chrome-gemini-nano-download-windows-11/

[–] Jack@lemmy.ca 17 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

The linked page accesses at least 10 other sites for scripts, and is more than 2 MB big. It could have been a 458 byte page:

Remove and prevent 4 GB Gemini nano install into Chrome, on Windows 11:

  1. Backup registry
  2. Start
  3. regedit
  4. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies
  5. right-click Policies, New, Key
  6. confirm Google, Enter
  7. right-click Google, New, Key
  8. confirm Chrome, Enter
  9. right-click Chrome, New, DWORD (32-bit) Value
  10. confirm GenAILocalFoundationalModelSettings, Enter
  11. right-click newly created key, Modify
  12. set value to 1
  13. OK
  14. Restart computer.
[–] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 11 points 18 hours ago

I am pretty sure that the main way how how to remove it is to uninstall chrome, but i also think that if you cared, you wouldn't be using chrome in the first place

[–] Encephalotrocity@feddit.online 15 points 19 hours ago

Laughs in Librewolf

[–] Mothra@mander.xyz 6 points 18 hours ago

Yup it's exactly as the headline says once you read the article. No clickbait. Also is a thorough and readable post, long but easy to understand even for someone who isn't very tech savvy such as myself.

I guess I have to figure out how to uninstall that now

[–] gianni@lemmy.ca 4 points 18 hours ago (4 children)

Beyond the disk size, what's wrong with this? Isn't local machine learning better than shipping your data off to some cloud provider? Or is the problem machine learning?

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 9 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Isn’t local machine learning better than shipping your data off to some cloud provider?

They're absolutely shipping all your local data up to their cloud.

[–] gianni@lemmy.ca 1 points 15 hours ago

It's likely (and one of the reasons I don't use Chrome) but its not the discussion we're having.

[–] deliriousdreams@fedia.io 7 points 15 hours ago

Per Passerby6497's comment above:

The AI Mode pill in the Chrome 147 omnibox is a cloud-backed Search Generative Experience surface - every query the user types into it is sent over the network to Google's servers for processing by Google's hosted models. The on-device Nano model is not invoked by the AI Mode UI flow at all. They are entirely separate code paths - the most visible AI affordance in the browser does not use the local model the user has been silently given, and the features that do use the local model (Help-Me-Write in , tab-group AI suggestions, smart paste, page summary) are buried in textarea-context menus and tab-group right-click menus that the average user will discover, on average, never.

What a double kick to the dick. First, they silently download 4gb to your disk, and they still fucking send your shit to their cloud AI.

[–] kureta@lemmy.ml 10 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

The problem, mostly, is that it is installed without informing the user or asking for content and it reinstalls even if you delete it, which is what a malware does. I may not want a local AI work on my laptop on battery while I am working and browsing the internet.

[–] gianni@lemmy.ca 0 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

To me this seems arbitrary—Chrome contains countless other binary blobs which you have no insight to and cannot consent to. They are part of the application. Chrome contains other machine learning algorithms and features and has for years, but these have been baked-in. You have likely been using "local AI" or machine learning on your laptop battery for quite some time without being explicitly aware of it.

If people don't like these features that's fine, there are lots of alternatives to choose from (personally, I use Helium). But to be upset about this specific instance seems arbitrary to me. And to claim that it's somehow nefarious (i.e. the consent part) seems disingenuous. Consent is granted when the user downloads and begins using Chrome—why would Chrome need additional consent to download/update one of many external components?

Again, I don't use Chrome and I'm not interested in this feature, I just don't see how it's necessarily bad or evil all things considered.

[–] kureta@lemmy.ml 5 points 16 hours ago

You have likely been using "local AI" or machine learning on your laptop battery for quite some time without being explicitly aware of it.

But to be upset about this specific instance seems arbitrary to me.

I am upset because I am aware of this one. How can I be upset about something I am not even aware of?

why would Chrome need additional consent to download/update one of many external components?

The user should be informed about what they are getting. By that logic Chrome csn also install and run a crypto miner.

[–] Mothra@mander.xyz 5 points 16 hours ago

If you read the article it will summarize very succinctly everything wrong with it. It is illegal for a variety of reasons in some places (Europe, California) it's wasteful, it means 4 fucking GB of data unrequested which can be a problem in metered connections in many places. 4GB. This model is not essential for chrome to function as a browser at all, and in all likelihood unless you use it for generating text then you probably are not even using it.

[–] laz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 14 hours ago

Try supermium

[–] webkitten@piefed.social 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Does anyone know if this also applies to Vivaldi? I doubt it but I wanted to check.

[–] definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 3 points 17 hours ago

It won't affect Vivaldi. Vivaldi doesn't automatically ship Chrome code without review.

[–] Sims@lemmy.ml 3 points 19 hours ago

F' everything Google ! Owners and workers alike, scum people..