Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane.

2026-05-05 17:22 UTC

The article gives 3 options to avoid it: The only ways to make the deletion stick are to disable Chrome’s AI features through chrome://flags or enterprise policy tooling that home users do not generally have, or to uninstall Chrome entirely It can probably be reverted at their whim at any time You probably don’t have access to it It is the most realistic option, just use another browser

Replies (6)

@CaptMurica@beehaw.org 2026-05-05 17:39

And I thought Apple force downloading that U2 crap to my device was bad. This is insane.

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@fckreddit@lemmy.ml 2026-05-06 07:07

These Big Tech are really getting comfortable with downloading malware now. Sign of desperation or Hubris?

Open ##2602284
@perestroika@slrpnk.net 2026-05-06 00:04

That's pretty nice detective work. Now the lawyers can begin. If Google downloads a ton of stuff for users, some of them with limited disk space, some with metered data connectivity, Google is making their lives worse. If they automatically make the life of (for example) 100 million people worse, they should be fined for such behaviour. If this behaviour is occurring in Europe, then I predict that under the EU Digital Services Act, they will be fined eventually.

Open ##2602285
@foxymochakitten@slrpnk.net 2026-05-07 13:26

Get rid of Chrome. It's obsolete these days anyway

Open ##2602286
@humble_boatsman@sh.itjust.works 2026-05-05 19:00

This would be for users of Chrome web browsers only? Not just using Google search on DDG? How about through steam overlay?

Open ##2602287
@Blaster_M@lemmy.world 2026-05-05 18:49

Wait until they do a study on gaming's contribution to climate change...

Open ##2602288