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.
Thanks for the constructive comment. I am suspicious that it’s only a temporary stopgap and the feature will keep being pushed on users with increasing difficulty of opting out. For me, this is the time to move on from Chrome like it was time to move on from Windows 11 about a year ago. I am only using it out of some friction of setting up addons on a different browser, but at some point cutting the heads of the AI bloat hydra becomes the bigger hassle.
To prevent automatic re-downloading, disable the experimental flags that trigger the download uninstall it and use Firefox instead. Or even fucking Edge. Literally any other browser would be better.
I’m actually wondering if Edge will soon follow suit with this, considering how I had to go into fucking Administrative Tools to permanently disable all OneDrive (and Edge turns out) updates in Task Scheduler to stop it from shoving the recent Copilot desktop install down my throat.
May have to eventually look into a hard uninstall of Edge… or finally bite the bullet and deal with the perpetual headache that is Linux lol
To prevent automatic re-downloading, disable the experimental flags that trigger the download.
Open Chrome and type chrome://flags in the address bar.
Search for #optimization-guide-on-device-model and set it to Disabled.
Search for #prompt-api-for-gemini-nano and set it to Disabled.
Relaunch Chrome.
Just uninstall chrome.
If you need a webkit browser, almost all other browsers are based on chromium.
Thanks for the constructive comment. I am suspicious that it’s only a temporary stopgap and the feature will keep being pushed on users with increasing difficulty of opting out. For me, this is the time to move on from Chrome like it was time to move on from Windows 11 about a year ago. I am only using it out of some friction of setting up addons on a different browser, but at some point cutting the heads of the AI bloat hydra becomes the bigger hassle.
I’m actually wondering if Edge will soon follow suit with this, considering how I had to go into fucking Administrative Tools to permanently disable all OneDrive (and Edge turns out) updates in Task Scheduler to stop it from shoving the recent Copilot desktop install down my throat.
May have to eventually look into a hard uninstall of Edge… or finally bite the bullet and deal with the perpetual headache that is Linux lol