Cross-Posted, via Technology Community.
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.
I wonder if disabling the Chrome app on android helps. I’ve had it disabled for a while. I occasionally run into a page or app integration that fails and have to re enable it temporarily but I always go back and disable it. Fuck Google.
try other chromium based browsers like Brave, helium etc
Yeah I already use the ddg browser where applicable but I refuse to ever use Brave.