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.
Thats wrong.
The person only tested it on Edge, and the media just copied it verbatim. But it works with any Chrome or Chromium-based browser. You can test it very easily.
Launch the browser, save a random password in the built-in password manager, then close the browser. When you open the browser again, just create a dump and then search for the strings. It’s supposed to work across user accounts as well. I haven’t tested that yet, though.
Thats wrong.
The person only tested it on Edge, and the media just copied it verbatim. But it works with any Chrome or Chromium-based browser. You can test it very easily. Launch the browser, save a random password in the built-in password manager, then close the browser. When you open the browser again, just create a dump and then search for the strings. It’s supposed to work across user accounts as well. I haven’t tested that yet, though.