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.
The article doesn’t really say but this is just for desktop chrome right now right? I’ve long had chrome disabled since graphene isn’t an option unless I build it myself but I do worry about that pesky web view that snuck it’s way into everything.
The article doesn’t really say but this is just for desktop chrome right now right? I’ve long had chrome disabled since graphene isn’t an option unless I build it myself but I do worry about that pesky web view that snuck it’s way into everything.
Desktop chrome only