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People are shocked when the bad boyfriend (google) that people warned them about, do highly unethical things. That boyfriend only exists to use & abuse you, it has no other purpose anymore.
That "boyfriend" just makes money, he doesn't know or even care about your existence.
Bloatware, in my Google Chrome!?
No it isn’t. Because I don’t run anything from Google.
Let me guess, you run Linux?
I use Arch btw
I use arch btw
What if you keep the file around but write to it and zero size it? Does chrome still download the file again?
Well I'm glad Google decided to bite the bullet and face the immense, Biblical backlash. So that Mozilla Corporation has a few new thoughts to ponder on.
But...
Isn't that a good thing?
I mean, running an LLM locally is much more private than running it somewhere in the cloud at a provider that gets your raw data, isn't it?
All your data stays on your device, while making it much, much harder for Google to argument why it should be uploaded to their data centers.
I'm reminded of when they pinky swore that they weren't dissecting your data in incognito tabs.
They lied. And nothing ever really happened to them for it. Proof is that they still have the audacity to do anti consumer shit like this and not even think twice.
Also if I was someone who wanted to run an LLM locally there are many options other than whatever crap google is putting out. You can't trust them at all with even a morsel of your data.
All your data stays on your device
You don't seriously believe that, do you? They just use your device's memory and CPU, thus your electricity to shovel through your data and then sending all valuable data to their servers.
For clarity sake, that’s not what’s happening here. (Don’t misunderstand this comment as defending google, I could write a book about how much they suck)
The model downloaded is a LLM called Gemini Nano, and it’s used for things like “help me write”, checking if an incoming message is scam, summaries, etc.
Don’t worry about it itself being a spyware. It’s not; but for argument sake, if we were to assume that it was: they already know a lot about you through their usual apps and services, and get a lot more info out of you through them. This LLM would hardly move that needle.
The actual issue is that they download it for everyone, even if their devices don’t match the minimum requirements. And without consent. And to enable it, you need to go through several menus, as the default behaviour is to use the cloud (this could change eventually, my understanding is that in this update they’re just laying the foundation)
But, it’s Google that we’re talking about. Last year they were sentenced to pay a fine for spying on users despite them having their tracking settings off. And it wasn’t the first time iirc. This kind of behaviour is par for the course with them
If they are doing this without user knowledge, I wouldn’t trust that everything the LLM ingests stays local either, until proven otherwise. Also, not everyone wants to have a local LLM running on their browser eating up 4GB of space.
If the reporting is accurate, your data is still sent to Google's servers for processing. This doesn't appear to improve privacy, it's more like an extension of the user surveillance business model that Google has pursued in the past decade.
It's not a good thing if you don't want a freaking LLM to begin with. Hidden 4GB download for a feature I can't give a sungle fuck about is ridiculous.
If someone chooses to do that then yes its a better option, but 4GB of LLM shouldn't just be shipped in a browser.
If I choose to install and use an LLM on my device, sure. That doesn't mean Google should take it upon themselves to ship one baked into the browser, with no way to opt out or remove it without it being re-downloaded.
Assuming Google will respect privacy is certainly a take.
Say the following single line below out loud:
I am the product.
The model could interact with everything on the PC without overhead on connection or servers, or user consent and then report back compressed reports. And who knows, maybe even training the model in a distributed way with users interactions with the PC.
Sure, but privacy isn't the only issue. It still consumes a ton of energy all for basically nothing. So you are paying that electric bill, as well as as the wear and tear on your GPU.
I wonder if they do it on phones as well. Not everyone has a 256GB+ device, and 4GB would be a significant chunk on even that.
What little I read about this it seems to only be on desktop. For now.
Some suit in the C Suite is having a wet dream though imagining the not so far off future where they can run shit like this on your phone.
this post was submitted on 06 May 2026
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