Hanff discovered a four-gigabyte file named “weights.bin,” in a directory called “OptGuideOnDeviceModel.” The file contains weights — the learned numerical parameters of an AI model that teach it how to weigh the importance of various data points — of Google’s Gemini Nano, which is designed to live on users’ devices, not the cloud.
“Chrome did not ask,” Hanff wrote. “Chrome does not surface it. If the user deletes it, Chrome re-downloads it.”
this post was submitted on 09 May 2026
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Privacy
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Chrome users will do literally anything except pick an alternative browser.
Chrome is an alternative browser for most people.
I know someone who insists they realy like Edge.
Edge saves your passwords in plain text 😬
There isn't much difference between the two honestly. If you're on Windows, you could argue it's better for just one company to have your data as opposed to two.
To be fair, it’s really easy to switch to edge, you just use the browser you currently use, then after a bit you open edge and viola, all your data was transferred without your consent, including passwords, tabs, cache, everything.
(Source: happened to me 3 times)
My name isn't Viola
I prefer Edge to Chrome, but if you want or need a Chromium based browser there are better options. I personally prefer Waterfox which is not Chromium based mostly for the shorter UI chrome which leaves more room for the content.
Yeah.
Edge still has its problems, but it's nowhere near the hot mess it wass in 2015 when it was basically a reskinned IE. Once they switched to Chromium it was still a hot mess, butit did get polished and has all the features you'd expect of a modern browser.
That being said, Edge is the main innovator behind built-in AI chats and similar bloat, which Chrome also likes to shove down people's throats.
And although the feature has existed as a Firefox addon for ages, I think the first browser to support tab groups and horizontal tabs was Edge.
So since both are pretty on-par feature (and bloat) wise, run the same engine and are made and maintained by billion-dollar corpos gobbling user data, both seem like two sides of the same coin.
So for 'normies', it pretty much boils down to which ecosystem you're more ingrained - that will make you prefer Edge or Chrome.
Us lunatics on Linux and/or ActivityPub prefer an independent option.
Reality is that the only browsers are safari, chrome and Firefox. Anything else is using the engine of these three and heavily dependent on the creator of those 3 to ship anything. Safari is the new IE, Firefox is not without his problems. Vivaldi would protect you from this kind of AI download (maybe) but is not like it is anything else then the chrome engine with a good skin on top. And on iOS all browsers are safari with a skin on top because apple say so.
Not that i don't wish there were more than 3 browser engines, but in practice right now it does not matter. Chromium isn't a bad engine, but Chrome is a bad browser because Google shoves their shit into it. The open source Chromium parts are fine.
No, open source chromium parts are not fine. You can see this with the effort from Google to limit adblocker extensions with manifest v3, now backed in chromium. In the past other browsers had to strip privacy sandbox from chromium. Google tried to put WEI directly in chromium before it was stripped in November 2023. Google has become the cancer of modern web and abuses chromium to impose control over 80% of browser market, the same way Apple does on iOS. Long gone the time when Google motto was “don’t be evil”.
Well, technically yt-dlp too but that don’t help much for actually browsing.
If yt-dlp is a browser, then so is curl
Why did they use a screenshot of Chrome from, like, Win XP times?
that's the last time anyone chose to use it instead of treating it as some form of hegemonic default
Chrome users are likely not readers of privacy blogs. So 'fury' sounds like a strong word considering those same users are blissfully unawares and there is no comment in the article from google or their intention to respond to the reported abuse
They should be put onto privacy blogs so they understand its fucked and use way better options
Clickbait headline.
"fury and "sneakily" are loaded terms. You can find a furious person on any topic on social media and "sneakily" is nonsense, they were trying to delete a file that Chrome requires and so Chrome fixes the install when it runs.
They even note that you can disable it in settings, though not without making it sound like an unusually hard thing to do: "manually digging through setting"
Clickbait headline, ragebait article. Anything for some advertising dollars.
I agree it's a hyperbolic headline and article; more of an opinion piece than news. It's subjective but I think I would describe it as "sneaky" to add a 4gb AI component to a browser. The AI features were added as a default feature, opt-outs were only added later, and the users are not asked for permission before the download of the 4gb file to support the AI service. This doesn't benefit users; it benefits Google in it's quest to try to dominate the AI space by pushing it's own AI features and integrations.
Just to be clear from the start, I don't use Chrome (or any Google products or services) and recommend everyone switch to Firefox/Firefox forks which are more privacy friendly.
I completely agree that it should be opt-in as well.
It’s subjective but I think I would describe it as “sneaky” to add a 4gb AI component to a browser.
Google CONSTANTLY adds and removes default features from Chrome without any user notice (outside of patch notes) and many without the ability to opt out (Manifest v3, for example). Most people simply don't care to pay attention to the patch notes, which is understandable.
But, this specific AI thing isn't one of them.
Like you said, this is Google attempting to dominate the AI space my pushing it's own AI features and integrations.
This means a lot of self-promotion
They have a blog post:
https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/ai-mode-chrome/
An announcement video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56b9uHAcHYc
Developer documentation:
https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/built-in
A product page:
https://gemini.google/overview/gemini-in-chrome/
(There's also YT advertisements and text ads, which I've seen on work PCs but I have them blocked at home so I have no links to examples)
The article, and many other articles sharing the same framing, are simply cashing in on outrage by ragebaiting the anti-AI crowd. Google has been loudly promoting their AI services and integration in all of their products. It is not at all surprising that Chrome is included in that and Google has made every attempt to tell every person on Earth that this is the case.
TL;DR:
- Chrome downloads a 4GB AI model without any user-facing option to disable this behaviour.
- Use another browser to avoid this, e.g. a Firefox employee stated that the AI kill-switch will completely stop such features in Firefox (Source: Techlore Talks). Other alternatives are Brave, Vivaldi, Waterfox and many more. Choose what fits your needs.
Brave is a series scam company.
Google is mask off now. It's 100% a spyware company and jn AmeriKKKan crapitalism, caveat emptor.
the bigger problem is that not enough people care enough to stop using it.
Its not that they do not care they just are not informed in way where they will find out about it, and then care. They need to feel the personal impact it will have on them or at least understand that.
Everyone reading this comment please let others know. We need another movement bringing proper awareness to this!!
You chose chrome. It's on you.
Brother, it was installed on my device without my consent :|
I get you
You can still just stop using it and move to Firefox at least. However I understand you might have device restrictions for installing new programs if it's not your own device.
If the AI model runs locally and doesn’t spy on you, sure. Users should be asked before such a thing is installed and many old computers will choke hard at running this shit too. Google chrome is gonna take up a lot more ram too.