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.
This is not the OS fault: since you assumed risk to install Chrome, the OS assumed you trusted the application to operate without interrupting its functionality by asking you permission to download text, images and web content every time you loaded a web page.
Its Chrome abusing this trust to download shit without tell you.
This is not the OS fault: since you assumed risk to install Chrome, the OS assumed you trusted the application to operate without interrupting its functionality by asking you permission to download text, images and web content every time you loaded a web page.
Its Chrome abusing this trust to download shit without tell you.
Y’know what? My brain replaced Chrome with Android and I went to the 2GB of AI model that they bundle with the OS now (maybe just pixel devices)
(Also before anyone fancies getting sanctimonious, Apple bundles a 3GB model with all their shit too)