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.
-
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
"The current genAI mania may have done more to drive people away from proprietary software than the FSF could ever hope to."
/me yesterday, while rambling about putting Inspect Element in non-browser software
https://fe.disroot.org/notice/B5zUZ2ZtDIfnDcLv5E -
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 If Google is doing this to offload CPU to the hapless users, perhaps some enterprising individual can come with a poisoned version of the file. Your computer, your rules?
-
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 6.5 GB for an internet browser! How ridiculous!
-
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.)
Vivaldi for permanently opened tabs / Mullvad Browser for general browsing.
Works great, I highly recommend.
-
@cstross 6.5 GB for an internet browser! How ridiculous!
@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.
-
@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 At least it's local I guess, but that's an outrageous amount of space for a feature you can't opt out of.
-
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've done the same on Windows. I've switched browsers to Brave for now. Sigh...
-
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 switch to librefox instead of FF.
-
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 you might try those misbehaving sites in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungoogled_Chromium ?
-
@cstross switch to librefox instead of FF.
@jasonb Stop telling me what to do or I will block you.
-
@cstross At least it's local I guess, but that's an outrageous amount of space for a feature you can't opt out of.
@JustinMac84 @cstross
Plus not everyone has extrafast or unlimited bandwidth internet. -
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'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?
-
@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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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
-
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…
-
@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.
-
@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!
-
@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.
