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.
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
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