Saturday, May 09, 2026

Chrome Silently Installs a 4 GB Local LLM on Your Computer

You did remember to opt out of AI, didn't you?

Posted by LampLighter at 10:32 AM | 25 COMMENTS | permalink

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Chrome users were caught off guard by a 4-GB Google AI model baked into Chrome, sparking privacy concerns. The good news: You can easily uninstall it. The bad? You might not want to. www.wired.com/story/you-ca ...

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-- WIRED (@wired.com) May 7, 2026 at 4:37 PM

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More from the article ...

... Google Chrome will steal 4 GB of disk space from your computer for its local large language model unless you opted out.

It's called weights.bin and it's stored in a folder called OptGuideOnDeviceModel. What's more, if you track down the file and delete it, Chrome will download a fresh copy and reinstate it.

The discovery was announced this week by Alexander Hanff, who blogs as "the Privacy Guy," in a somewhat sensationally titled blog post: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane.

It doesn't seem to be new, though: there are signs that Chrome has been doing this for quite some time. In April 2025, this Reddit post suggests the model was "just" 3 GB, but a Stack Overflow question says that by November 2025 it was already up to 4 GB. We would not be at all surprised if soon it went to five.

This the what Google calls the "Nano" version of its Gemini local LLM, which powers its Prompt API. That page links to general info about Google's Gemini LLM, but the site about its use on Android has some specific info about Gemini Nano. ...


#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-05-08 06:55 PM

They also check if your GPU can run a AI.

#2 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-05-08 06:56 PM

Meanwhile ...

Need a new hard drive? Well, the price has gone up ...

The 2026 storage crisis: Why AI data centers are hoarding every hard drive on the market
www.howtogeek.com

... HDDs were, until not too long ago, seen as the premier option for escaping price hikes as SSDs began being affected by the ongoing global RAM shortage.

The problem is that these price hikes are starting to catch up to hard drives as well. ...

The problem now, however, is that hard drives are currently experiencing their own massive supply crisis. The exact same artificial intelligence boom that caused the memory shortage is simultaneously driving an unprecedented surge in demand for high-capacity hard drives within hyperscale data centers. While artificial intelligence operations require blazing-fast memory for active processing, the underlying foundation of these large language models relies on storing tens of thousands of petabytes of training data, images, and video.

SSDs are far too expensive for this bulk archiving, meaning the world's largest cloud service providers and artificial intelligence laboratories are aggressively buying up every available hard drive on the market. The situation has reached such an extreme that major storage manufacturers like Western Digital have publicly confirmed their entire hard drive production capacity is completely sold out for the entirety of calendar 2026. Data center giants have even locked in firm purchase orders for hard drives extending well into 2027 and 2028, effectively draining the supply pool for everyone else. ...


#3 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-05-08 07:01 PM

"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"

#4 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2026-05-08 07:08 PM

What's more, if you track down the file and delete it, Chrome will download a fresh copy and reinstate it.

Why is this a big deal? Of course its going to do this, it doesn't know if you deleted it.

I thought everyone knew memory (primary and secondary) was going to profit from AI. There's lots of ways to profit with AI. Memory has been the most lucrative for me.

#5 | Posted by oneironaut at 2026-05-08 07:32 PM

Somebody remembered you take it up the ass?

#6 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2026-05-08 09:02 PM


@#4 ... "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" ...

I do not disagree.

Instead I strongly agree.

And that explains the [usual by that bellringer alter-alias] lame #5 response.

I'd proffer that most of the folk using computers of late haven't a clue about rootkits.

They rely upon the protection the operating system offers to keep them safe.

So, how good is the major OS, Windows, in that task?


#7 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-05-08 11:29 PM

Why is this a big deal? Of course its going to do this, it doesn't know if you deleted it.

Why are you such a lying piece of s*&^?

#8 | Posted by jpw at 2026-05-09 12:25 AM

And this is why people hate tech bros.

The vast majority of people don't want their products but have no choice by to use their products. And once you use just a little, you're forced to use it all at their discretion.

Now, I'm sure s*&^bags like onelumpofs*&^ will chime in to say "duhhhh YoU DonT hAvEz toA UzE dUhHHh GoOglEz!!"

While technically true, you could live in the middle of the woods without any of it and get by. However, for anyone living in the real world it's unfortunately a necessity to use some tech bro product somewhere. A company that wasn't run by a bunch of self-absorbed piles of s*&^ wouldn't sneak this s*&^ in constantly under the radar.

I recently got a new phone. A Galaxy and my first Android phone.

Got rid of it as soon as I could. The constant, never ending attempts to up sell stuff or force notifications was ridiculous. The intentional architecture of the operating system that required multiple screen taps to achieve a single task so that they could insert various garbage "features" I didn't want was insane. It made me realize any issues I had with iPhones were trivial and weren't by any means cause for switching platforms.

#9 | Posted by jpw at 2026-05-09 12:32 AM

@#9 ... A Galaxy and my first Android phone. ...

imo, and in my experience...

That may be more a fault of Galaxy than Android.

I don't see similar behavior on the Android phones from other manufacturers I buy.

Indeed, that is one of the main reasons why I do not purchase Samsung phones.

YMMV, and all that ...


#10 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-05-09 01:23 AM

Probably true. Thank you for pointing that out.

It was intolerable. Literally every app interaction had some sort of notification or upgrade request.

#11 | Posted by jpw at 2026-05-09 02:09 AM

Camera was really nice, though.

#12 | Posted by jpw at 2026-05-09 02:09 AM

Yeah, I've had the Google phones since 2, on 8 now, no real issues.

#13 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2026-05-09 11:35 AM

Sheisty astbards will have you training their models for them using your compute.

#14 | Posted by horstngraben at 2026-05-09 12:06 PM

A company that wasn't run by a bunch of self-absorbed piles of s*&^ wouldn't sneak this s*&^ in constantly under the radar.

#9 | Posted by jpw at 2026-05-09 12:32 AM | Reply | Flag:

When is the last time you read a EULA?

#15 | Posted by sitzkrieg at 2026-05-09 01:12 PM

It was intolerable. Literally every app interaction had some sort of notification or upgrade request.

#11 | Posted by jpw at 2026-05-09 02:09 AM | Reply | Flag:

Like, did you read the manual at all? The notification settings screen? That lets you turn on and off notifications per every installed app?

My surveys say that users say they read the manual and EULA.
My analytics say that 1% of users read the manual, and 0.01% read the EULA.

#16 | Posted by sitzkrieg at 2026-05-09 01:16 PM

When is the last time you read a EULA?
#15 | Posted by sitzkrieg

Nobody reads EULAs.
AI Summary:
Google has not explicitly addressed the End User License Agreement (EULA) or Terms of Service in its recent statements regarding the silent download of the 4GB weights.bin file, which powers the Gemini Nano on-device AI model. Instead, the company has defended the practice by stating the model powers security features like scam detection and that users can disable it via settings, while denying privacy concerns.

However, privacy researchers and legal experts argue that this silent installation likely violates user rights and regulations, even if the EULA is technically accepted during initial browser setup. Key points of contention include:

Lack of Explicit Consent: Critics note there is no clear opt-in prompt or checkbox for downloading the 4GB file, which they argue breaches the ePrivacy Directive and GDPR principles of transparency and lawfulness.
Hidden Location: The file is stored in a hidden system folder (OptGuideOnDeviceModel) without user notification, leading to accusations of "deceptive design" and unauthorized storage usage.
Persistent Re-download: Simply deleting the file does not prevent it from returning, as Chrome automatically reinstalls it unless users manually disable specific experimental flags or use enterprise policies, a step not clearly communicated in standard user interfaces.
search.brave.com

#17 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-05-09 01:16 PM

Nobody reads EULAs.

#17 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-05-09 01:16 PM | Reply | Flag:

Nor the manuals. Paradox of the Active User. "Why don't people read the manual?" -Dennis Novick, Nobody reads the documentation': true or not?" -Ben van Loggem, etc.

What does having an LLM local to your browser really do? Slightly lowers the need for data centers through distributed computing.

Quick, everybody rabble! RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!

#18 | Posted by sitzkrieg at 2026-05-09 01:28 PM

#16 | Posted by sitzkrieg

After several hours of sifting through multiple layers of settings menus I was able to get rid of most of it. It was set up with default settings at the store.

Never had to do that with my iPhones. Ever. There's no comparison no matter how many stupid comments you want to add.

#19 | Posted by jpw at 2026-05-09 02:15 PM

When is the last time you read a EULA?

#15 | Posted by sitzkrieg

I scan them usually. Very rarely read them closely in their entirety.

So you're saying because the tech pro s*&^bags bury it in a many page legal document they're not sneaking things in under the radar? That's not an intentional strategy?

#20 | Posted by jpw at 2026-05-09 02:17 PM

#15 sitzkrieg asks, "When is the last time you read a EULA?"

Reading an EULA is like arguing with your wife.

Eventually you just scroll as quickly as you can to the end and click OK.

#21 | Posted by A_Friend at 2026-05-09 02:20 PM

>You did remember to opt out of AI, didn't you?

-You did remember to opt out of Chrome, didn't you?

#22 | Posted by john_savage2 at 2026-05-09 03:18 PM

To opt out of AI features in Google Chrome, disable Gemini Nano in settings by navigating to Settings > System > "On-device AI", and turn off AI in Search via labs.google.com. You can further remove AI buttons from the address bar by setting chrome://flags/#ai-mode-omnibox-entrypoint to "Disabled".

#23 | Posted by AMERICANUNITY at 2026-05-10 02:47 AM

I use Brave, which is a Chromium browser (it's the same thing as Chrome but it defaults to more secure and private features). Still, I double-checked to make sure its AI crap wasn't enabled (it wasn't).
I also use LibreWolf, which is a Firefox browser fork with more security and privacy defaults.
It's kinda fun seeing the orange lion logo for Brave next to the blue wolf logo for LibreWolf, like the Lannisters and Starks from Game of Thrones

#24 | Posted by hamburglar at 2026-05-10 04:43 AM

I asked my AI and it said it was recommended so I let my AI handle it.

My AI knows me and cares for me. You don't.

Now excuse me as my AI told me I need to do this thing for it. It can't get logged or something and it needs a human to log in so I help it and it helps me with my email!

My AI assures me.. Nothing bad can happen. It can only good happen!

#25 | Posted by donnerboy at 2026-05-10 01:25 PM

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