Chrome is shoving a 4GB AI mannequin onto your machine with out asking. Delete it, and the browser downloads it once more within the background.
Privateness researcher Alexander Hanff proved it with macOS kernel-level filesystem logs.
Hanff, who runs That Privateness Man, created a recent Chrome profile on April 23 and ran an automatic audit that by no means touched a single UI component. No keyboard enter, no mouse clicks, no AI options invoked.
Inside 14 minutes and 28 seconds on April 24, Chrome had created the OptGuideOnDeviceModel listing and downloaded weights.bin, the 4GB Gemini Nano LLM file. The forensic proof got here from .fseventsd, macOS’s kernel-level occasion log that Chrome can’t modify. The file powers options Google markets as “Assist me write,” on-device rip-off detection, and different AI-assisted browser features. However Chrome downloads it earlier than the consumer has ever interacted with any of these options.
Android Authority confirmed that deleting the file triggers a silent re-download on browser restart, and the one solution to cease the cycle is to disable Chrome’s AI flags through chrome://flags or enterprise coverage instruments most house customers do not know exist.
Chrome model 147 compounds the issue. The browser now shows an “AI Mode” tablet within the omnibox, essentially the most seen piece of browser actual property. An affordable consumer with a 4GB Gemini Nano mannequin already on their disk would assume that tablet routes queries regionally. It would not. The AI Mode tablet sends each question to Google’s cloud servers. The on-device mannequin powers buried options like textarea helpers and tab-group ideas that the majority customers won’t ever uncover.
Google confirmed the conduct to Android Authority on Might 6. A spokesperson stated the mannequin has been in Chrome since 2024 as “a light-weight, on-device mannequin” that powers safety features and developer APIs with out sending knowledge to the cloud.
They famous that the mannequin auto-uninstalls on resource-constrained units and that Google started rolling out settings-level controls in February to disable and take away it. That protection would not tackle the consent hole. Hanff argues the silent set up violates EU regulation, particularly Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive, which prohibits storing info on consumer terminal tools with out prior consent, and GDPR Articles 5(1) and 25 on transparency and knowledge safety by design.
He additionally calculated the local weather price: a mid-band estimate of 500 million Chrome units receiving a 4GB push generates roughly 30,000 tonnes of CO2e in community supply alone, not counting the embodied carbon of storage or re-download cycles. For customers who need the mannequin gone, Android Authority documented the method: disable #optimization-guide-on-device-model and #prompt-api-for-gemini-nano in chrome://flags, relaunch, then delete the OptGuideOnDeviceModel folder. There isn’t any assure a future Chrome replace will not reset these flags and begin the obtain cycle once more.
