Google Chrome is silently installing a local LLM on your computer that is 4 gigabytes in size.
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${HOME}/.config/google-chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceModel/2025.8.21.1028/weights.bin@ferricoxide Thanks. It appears to be ~/.var/app/com.google.Chrome/config/google-chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceModel/ for me as I have it installed via Flatpak, but the weights.bin file hasn't showed up yet.
I wonder if Flatpak is getting in the way here, or if it's getting installed somewhere else.
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Google Chrome is silently installing a local LLM on your computer that is 4 gigabytes in size. It's done without consent, it's not visible in the settings, and removing it will reinstall it later.
Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. — That Privacy Guy!
Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise tooling, and an automatic re-download every time the user deletes it. The pattern is identical to the Anthropic Claude Desktop case I wrote about last month, but the scale is between two and three orders of magnitude larger. This article does the legal analysis and, for the first time, the environmental analysis. The numbers are not small.
That Privacy Guy! (www.thatprivacyguy.com)
@atoponce So outside of uninstalling Chrome, what's the solution here?
And does it affect other Chrone-based browsers? -
@atoponce So outside of uninstalling Chrome, what's the solution here?
And does it affect other Chrone-based browsers?@faduda A possible solution might be toggling chrome://settings/system -> On-device AI, although I haven't been able to confirm, as the 4 GB weights.bin file hasn't shown up on my install yet.
And no, this is strictly Google Chrome browser bloat. It doesn't affect Chromium, Edge, Brave, or any of the other Chromium forks as I understand it.
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@0461fcbecc4c3374439932d6b8f11269ccdb7cc973ad7a50ae362db135a474dd @atoponce
Your sarcasm is noted. But it's also misplaced. In the article, the author points out that the obvious AI entry points in the browser (the toolbar AI button and the omnibar) don't even use the local model. They still send your queries to Google.
So you've got a ton of wasted bandwidth and storage space, no consent, no user action, no respect for user preferences (eg: deleting the file), and no privacy benefit because they route everything you type through the Google cloud anyway. -
@0461fcbecc4c3374439932d6b8f11269ccdb7cc973ad7a50ae362db135a474dd @atoponce I'll allow that it's clickbait (most every tech news article is these days). But how is it misinformation?
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@ferricoxide Thanks. It appears to be ~/.var/app/com.google.Chrome/config/google-chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceModel/ for me as I have it installed via Flatpak, but the weights.bin file hasn't showed up yet.
I wonder if Flatpak is getting in the way here, or if it's getting installed somewhere else.
@atoponce@fosstodon.org
No clue. I only looked in~because the only other locations my user would be able to write to would be/tmpor/var/tmp(which would be a bad place for Chrome to try to write to since those tend to be smaller partitions than/homenormally is (whether/homeis a standalone partition or part of `/) -
Google Chrome is silently installing a local LLM on your computer that is 4 gigabytes in size. It's done without consent, it's not visible in the settings, and removing it will reinstall it later.
Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. — That Privacy Guy!
Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise tooling, and an automatic re-download every time the user deletes it. The pattern is identical to the Anthropic Claude Desktop case I wrote about last month, but the scale is between two and three orders of magnitude larger. This article does the legal analysis and, for the first time, the environmental analysis. The numbers are not small.
That Privacy Guy! (www.thatprivacyguy.com)
@atoponce I can confirm this on my PC. I am removing Google Chrome now.
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Google Chrome is silently installing a local LLM on your computer that is 4 gigabytes in size. It's done without consent, it's not visible in the settings, and removing it will reinstall it later.
Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. — That Privacy Guy!
Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise tooling, and an automatic re-download every time the user deletes it. The pattern is identical to the Anthropic Claude Desktop case I wrote about last month, but the scale is between two and three orders of magnitude larger. This article does the legal analysis and, for the first time, the environmental analysis. The numbers are not small.
That Privacy Guy! (www.thatprivacyguy.com)
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Google Chrome is silently installing a local LLM on your computer that is 4 gigabytes in size. It's done without consent, it's not visible in the settings, and removing it will reinstall it later.
Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. — That Privacy Guy!
Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise tooling, and an automatic re-download every time the user deletes it. The pattern is identical to the Anthropic Claude Desktop case I wrote about last month, but the scale is between two and three orders of magnitude larger. This article does the legal analysis and, for the first time, the environmental analysis. The numbers are not small.
That Privacy Guy! (www.thatprivacyguy.com)
@atoponce Seems like an easy fix.
"The only ways to make the deletion stick are to disable Chrome's AI features through chrome://flags or enterprise policy tooling that home users do not generally have, or to uninstall Chrome entirely "
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Google Chrome is silently installing a local LLM on your computer that is 4 gigabytes in size. It's done without consent, it's not visible in the settings, and removing it will reinstall it later.
Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. — That Privacy Guy!
Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise tooling, and an automatic re-download every time the user deletes it. The pattern is identical to the Anthropic Claude Desktop case I wrote about last month, but the scale is between two and three orders of magnitude larger. This article does the legal analysis and, for the first time, the environmental analysis. The numbers are not small.
That Privacy Guy! (www.thatprivacyguy.com)
@atoponce what about Chromium?
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@atoponce what about Chromium?
@johnkavs It's unaffected. This is only Google Chrome bloat.
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Google Chrome is silently installing a local LLM on your computer that is 4 gigabytes in size. It's done without consent, it's not visible in the settings, and removing it will reinstall it later.
Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. — That Privacy Guy!
Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise tooling, and an automatic re-download every time the user deletes it. The pattern is identical to the Anthropic Claude Desktop case I wrote about last month, but the scale is between two and three orders of magnitude larger. This article does the legal analysis and, for the first time, the environmental analysis. The numbers are not small.
That Privacy Guy! (www.thatprivacyguy.com)
@atoponce Just in case someone wasn't already convinced they should dump Google Chrome for fucking good
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@atoponce@fosstodon.org
No clue. I only looked in~because the only other locations my user would be able to write to would be/tmpor/var/tmp(which would be a bad place for Chrome to try to write to since those tend to be smaller partitions than/homenormally is (whether/homeis a standalone partition or part of `/)@ferricoxide @atoponce what's the point of using Chrome ? I mean if I use Microsoft I will get a lot shit from Microsoft... No surprise there.
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@johnkavs It's unaffected. This is only Google Chrome bloat.
@atoponce not enough people know about Chromium, which Google were forced to create through anti-monopoly pressure
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@atoponce not enough people know about Chromium, which Google were forced to create through anti-monopoly pressure
Chromium: non-creepy chrome
https://download-chromium.appspot.comDont listen to googles discouragment: works fine, you choose whether you update it and it doesn't pressure you to use a google account
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@ferricoxide @atoponce what's the point of using Chrome ? I mean if I use Microsoft I will get a lot shit from Microsoft... No surprise there.
@tomtom@pouet.chapril.org @atoponce@fosstodon.org
If it weren't for the horribleness that is the #AWS #FleetManager to access #Windows EC2s via RDP(ish), I wouldn't use Chrome. However, AWS decided that FleetManager should be horrible to use with non #Chromium browsers (or maybe AWS just hates #Firefox). -
Google Chrome is silently installing a local LLM on your computer that is 4 gigabytes in size. It's done without consent, it's not visible in the settings, and removing it will reinstall it later.
Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. — That Privacy Guy!
Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise tooling, and an automatic re-download every time the user deletes it. The pattern is identical to the Anthropic Claude Desktop case I wrote about last month, but the scale is between two and three orders of magnitude larger. This article does the legal analysis and, for the first time, the environmental analysis. The numbers are not small.
That Privacy Guy! (www.thatprivacyguy.com)
@atoponce I've no choice but to use Chrome for work on my self-supplied PC, but I'm currently trying:
- Delete weights.bin
- Create an empty file with the same name
- Set its file attributes to read-only, and system to hopefully make it impossible for Google's weights file to replace it when Chrome tries to redownload it.Fingers crossed. If that doesn't work, I'll see if the hidden attribute works any better than the system attribute.
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@atoponce I've no choice but to use Chrome for work on my self-supplied PC, but I'm currently trying:
- Delete weights.bin
- Create an empty file with the same name
- Set its file attributes to read-only, and system to hopefully make it impossible for Google's weights file to replace it when Chrome tries to redownload it.Fingers crossed. If that doesn't work, I'll see if the hidden attribute works any better than the system attribute.
@pauldrye It seems toggling chrome://settings/system -> On-device AI does the trick.
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Google Chrome is silently installing a local LLM on your computer that is 4 gigabytes in size. It's done without consent, it's not visible in the settings, and removing it will reinstall it later.
Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. — That Privacy Guy!
Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise tooling, and an automatic re-download every time the user deletes it. The pattern is identical to the Anthropic Claude Desktop case I wrote about last month, but the scale is between two and three orders of magnitude larger. This article does the legal analysis and, for the first time, the environmental analysis. The numbers are not small.
That Privacy Guy! (www.thatprivacyguy.com)
Another reason to use Vivaldi web browser.
It is the last mainstream web browser to not bundle an AI.
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@faduda A possible solution might be toggling chrome://settings/system -> On-device AI, although I haven't been able to confirm, as the 4 GB weights.bin file hasn't shown up on my install yet.
And no, this is strictly Google Chrome browser bloat. It doesn't affect Chromium, Edge, Brave, or any of the other Chromium forks as I understand it.
