Welp, it's taken me a few days to get round to it, but I have just now deleted Chrome (and it's associated LLM malware downloads) from ALL my Macs.
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@cstross I've been using FF, Brave, and DuckDuckGo, with occasional tangents into less functional browsers like Mojeek, Swisscows, and Ecosia. What drove you to pick FF exclusively?
@SomeVeganCheeseIsOk I don't use FF exclusively. But I've been on FF since it replaced Mozilla and I've been on Mozilla since it replaced Netscape Navigator, and I switched to NN from NCSA Mosaic circa 1995.
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Welp, it's taken me a few days to get round to it, but I have just now deleted Chrome (and it's associated LLM malware downloads) from ALL my Macs. Fucker was taking up 6.5Gb of space on my Macbook Neo. Utterly unacceptable bullshit on a machine that starts with 256Gb of storage, even if I *wanted* the AI features (I don't).
Took a while because I had to transfer all my extensions and continuously open tabs across into Safari (I mainly use Firefox, but some sites render badly in FF.)
I was an early adopter of Chrome. Sad to see it become such garbage. I bailed on it sometime last year and went with Vivaldi.
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Welp, it's taken me a few days to get round to it, but I have just now deleted Chrome (and it's associated LLM malware downloads) from ALL my Macs. Fucker was taking up 6.5Gb of space on my Macbook Neo. Utterly unacceptable bullshit on a machine that starts with 256Gb of storage, even if I *wanted* the AI features (I don't).
Took a while because I had to transfer all my extensions and continuously open tabs across into Safari (I mainly use Firefox, but some sites render badly in FF.)
@cstross Good for you Charlie. I was at the same point last night (using Vivaldi as main browser) but had doubts. After you‘ve done it, I will join you tonight. Google-free Mac it shall be.
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Welp, it's taken me a few days to get round to it, but I have just now deleted Chrome (and it's associated LLM malware downloads) from ALL my Macs. Fucker was taking up 6.5Gb of space on my Macbook Neo. Utterly unacceptable bullshit on a machine that starts with 256Gb of storage, even if I *wanted* the AI features (I don't).
Took a while because I had to transfer all my extensions and continuously open tabs across into Safari (I mainly use Firefox, but some sites render badly in FF.)
@cstross Please consider Vivaldi instead, they are strongly anti Gen AI. Firefox cannot be trusted, Mozilla loves Gen AI and their "killswitch" is a con. For Firefox rendering, I use LibreWolf instead. LibreWolf is also anti Gen AI.
And please check your email and check out https://stopgenai.com
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Welp, it's taken me a few days to get round to it, but I have just now deleted Chrome (and it's associated LLM malware downloads) from ALL my Macs. Fucker was taking up 6.5Gb of space on my Macbook Neo. Utterly unacceptable bullshit on a machine that starts with 256Gb of storage, even if I *wanted* the AI features (I don't).
Took a while because I had to transfer all my extensions and continuously open tabs across into Safari (I mainly use Firefox, but some sites render badly in FF.)
@cstross question: how did you transfer all your open tabs and extensions? I think that’s what is holding me back…
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@cstross Please consider Vivaldi instead, they are strongly anti Gen AI. Firefox cannot be trusted, Mozilla loves Gen AI and their "killswitch" is a con. For Firefox rendering, I use LibreWolf instead. LibreWolf is also anti Gen AI.
And please check your email and check out https://stopgenai.com
@kimcrawley I'm considering Waterfox. Big issue is I have a *lot* of open tabs there (FF is my primary browser) on multiple machines. Moving one browser in a day has used up all my spoons.
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@cstross question: how did you transfer all your open tabs and extensions? I think that’s what is holding me back…
@Dr_Bombay Manually, with some effort!
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@kimcrawley I'm considering Waterfox. Big issue is I have a *lot* of open tabs there (FF is my primary browser) on multiple machines. Moving one browser in a day has used up all my spoons.
@cstross I understand completely. I'm not familiar with Waterfox, but my assumption is they are likely good.
I think you're a really cool science fiction writer, and I emailed you about Stop Gen AI this morning.
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Welp, it's taken me a few days to get round to it, but I have just now deleted Chrome (and it's associated LLM malware downloads) from ALL my Macs. Fucker was taking up 6.5Gb of space on my Macbook Neo. Utterly unacceptable bullshit on a machine that starts with 256Gb of storage, even if I *wanted* the AI features (I don't).
Took a while because I had to transfer all my extensions and continuously open tabs across into Safari (I mainly use Firefox, but some sites render badly in FF.)
@cstross it really is a hassle for a lot of people, and if you have left it, the thing will be constantly eating into your processing speed... in a very big way. It would essentially dominate your machine.
This really is sinister. The company has reached a stage in their development process where they have nothing new to train the model on.
So now they need to train it directly from you, on your machine.
It's all that's left for reach.
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Welp, it's taken me a few days to get round to it, but I have just now deleted Chrome (and it's associated LLM malware downloads) from ALL my Macs. Fucker was taking up 6.5Gb of space on my Macbook Neo. Utterly unacceptable bullshit on a machine that starts with 256Gb of storage, even if I *wanted* the AI features (I don't).
Took a while because I had to transfer all my extensions and continuously open tabs across into Safari (I mainly use Firefox, but some sites render badly in FF.)
Thanks for posting this. I have Chrome installed everywhere as a backup browser. Time to find a new backup.
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Welp, it's taken me a few days to get round to it, but I have just now deleted Chrome (and it's associated LLM malware downloads) from ALL my Macs. Fucker was taking up 6.5Gb of space on my Macbook Neo. Utterly unacceptable bullshit on a machine that starts with 256Gb of storage, even if I *wanted* the AI features (I don't).
Took a while because I had to transfer all my extensions and continuously open tabs across into Safari (I mainly use Firefox, but some sites render badly in FF.)
This could be helpful:
Willow (@salixlucida@mastodon.sdf.org)
De-Google: https://helium.computer/ De-Mozilla (Firefox surreptitiously "phones home", plus Mozilla wants to make Firefox an "AI browser"): https://zen-browser.app/
Mastodon @ SDF (mastodon.sdf.org)
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This could be helpful:
Willow (@salixlucida@mastodon.sdf.org)
De-Google: https://helium.computer/ De-Mozilla (Firefox surreptitiously "phones home", plus Mozilla wants to make Firefox an "AI browser"): https://zen-browser.app/
Mastodon @ SDF (mastodon.sdf.org)
@ParadeGrotesque @salixlucida No, it's the *opposite* of helpful.
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Welp, it's taken me a few days to get round to it, but I have just now deleted Chrome (and it's associated LLM malware downloads) from ALL my Macs. Fucker was taking up 6.5Gb of space on my Macbook Neo. Utterly unacceptable bullshit on a machine that starts with 256Gb of storage, even if I *wanted* the AI features (I don't).
Took a while because I had to transfer all my extensions and continuously open tabs across into Safari (I mainly use Firefox, but some sites render badly in FF.)
@cstross I had planned to do some writing today but nooo, I'm following your example.
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Welp, it's taken me a few days to get round to it, but I have just now deleted Chrome (and it's associated LLM malware downloads) from ALL my Macs. Fucker was taking up 6.5Gb of space on my Macbook Neo. Utterly unacceptable bullshit on a machine that starts with 256Gb of storage, even if I *wanted* the AI features (I don't).
Took a while because I had to transfer all my extensions and continuously open tabs across into Safari (I mainly use Firefox, but some sites render badly in FF.)
@cstross I likr waterfox.
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@Dr_Bombay Manually, with some effort!
@cstross @Dr_Bombay open tabs you should be able to use OneTab across both, then export and import.
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@JustinMac84 Actually it's 1.5Gb for the browser ... and another 5Gb for a sodding local AI model I didn't ask for *which is non-removable and Chrome re-downloads it if you delete it*. Hence nuking the app completely.
@cstross @JustinMac84
"Another great victory for Marketing."Coming soon - Alphabet Inc renamed Phyrrus Inc.
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Welp, it's taken me a few days to get round to it, but I have just now deleted Chrome (and it's associated LLM malware downloads) from ALL my Macs. Fucker was taking up 6.5Gb of space on my Macbook Neo. Utterly unacceptable bullshit on a machine that starts with 256Gb of storage, even if I *wanted* the AI features (I don't).
Took a while because I had to transfer all my extensions and continuously open tabs across into Safari (I mainly use Firefox, but some sites render badly in FF.)
@cstross On one hand, I didn't update my CPU earlier when I should/could, and I am still running my PC from 2012. OTOH, Chrome can't bloat on my hard disk because it can't update. LOL.
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@Dr_Bombay Manually, with some effort!
@cstross @Dr_Bombay Hmmm. Most browsers have a "list of open tabs" function, which *implies* (big 7 letters!) a file containing that list (dynamically generated).
Which if you could find it would be half the battle.
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@cstross it really is a hassle for a lot of people, and if you have left it, the thing will be constantly eating into your processing speed... in a very big way. It would essentially dominate your machine.
This really is sinister. The company has reached a stage in their development process where they have nothing new to train the model on.
So now they need to train it directly from you, on your machine.
It's all that's left for reach.
@dckim @cstross
5GB is *very* small for a training set. Small fractions of a percent. So how are they divvying up that task (à la SETI@home) and sending digested data back?Now you've got me thinking. How much compute has Google (Alphabet) "donated" to BOINC - the generalisation of task distribution that grew off the back of SETI@home?
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Thanks for posting this. I have Chrome installed everywhere as a backup browser. Time to find a new backup.
@firebreathingduck @cstross
I went through that process a few months ago, and settled on Opera.
Which is pushing it's diseased AI willy in my face all too often.
