this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. (www.thatprivacyguy.com)
submitted 4 hours ago by sanitation@lemmy.radio to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] tomatolung@lemmy.world 48 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

So we now have a four-way evidence chain - macOS kernel filesystem events, Chrome's own per-profile state, Chrome's runtime feature flags, and Google's component-updater logs - all four agreeing on the same conduct, and the conduct is: a 4 GB AI model arrived on this user's disk without consent, without notice, on a profile that received zero human input, in a window of 14 minutes and 28 seconds, on a Tuesday afternoon.

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 6 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

How do we uninstall or block the download?

[–] livligkinkajou@slrpnk.net 41 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

Uninstall chrome

[–] turboSnail@piefed.europe.pub 2 points 39 minutes ago

And install Firefox or one of its many forks.

[–] leoj@piefed.social 11 points 3 hours ago (5 children)

Can you even uninstall chrome on an android phone? I only get the option to disable.

[–] zerozaku@lemmy.world 3 points 49 minutes ago

Use Shizuku and Canta to uninstall any uninstallable app. Or if you don't want to bother, just disabling works fine too as long as you are not worried about the storage.

[–] feannag@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 hour ago (1 children)
[–] leoj@piefed.social 3 points 39 minutes ago

this is very helpful info, thank you, didn't realize this was possible.

[–] jtrek@startrek.website 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Is this happening on android, too?

[–] leoj@piefed.social 2 points 40 minutes ago

I don't think so... yet... So not as disconcerting tbf, but curious to if it will come out of nowhere at some point, just like this.

[–] frischkaesbagett@feddit.org 4 points 2 hours ago

That depends on the ROM you are using.

The one i am using (https://iode.tech/) is using a firefox based browser that you can actually uninstall.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Probably not stock Android. I'm on GrapheneOS and it doesn't come with Chrome at all. But I don't think the article is claiming it happens on Android.

[–] FE80@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Vanadium is Chrome derived; but I'm sure Graphene de-enshittifies it to the maximum possible extent.

[–] Attacker94@lemmy.world 2 points 43 minutes ago

Technically speaking, it is chromium derived which does make the difference in this instance.

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

So it just to the Chrome app?

[–] livligkinkajou@slrpnk.net 8 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

The article actually gives 3 options:

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

  1. It can probably be reverted at their whim at any time
  2. You probably don't have access to it
  3. It is the most realistic option, just use another non chromium browser
[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 hours ago

Even Chromium should be fine. I doubt it has the branded Google AI features.

[–] tomatolung@lemmy.world 16 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

More difficult to remove than install. Adding the file took zero clicks. Removing it requires (a) discovering the file exists, (b) understanding what it is, (c) navigating into a hidden user profile path, (d) deleting it (and on Windows, also clearing the read-only attribute first), and (e) accepting that Chrome will silently re-download it on next eligible window unless the user also navigates chrome://flags, enterprise policy, or platform-specific configuration tooling to disable the underlying Chrome AI feature [5]. None of those steps is documented in the place a normal user looks - none of them is even hinted at in default Chrome.

This is 5: https://pureinfotech.com/stop-chrome-gemini-nano-download-windows-11/

Obviously only windows focused, so how other platforms stop would require more searching.

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 6 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I don't have Windows 11. Still on 10 until October then switching to Linux.

[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 4 points 1 hour ago

Don't even bother with 11. At all.
I bought a win11 laptop, didn't create any accounts just installed the os... Then microsoft locked me out of the laptop with thier new bitlocker bs. It won't even let me factory reset the effing thing.

Switched to linux and im happy. It's just a steam deck, but it's still a better pc than the bit brick.