Chrome silently downloads a 4GB AI mannequin. Here is the right way to take away it
Abstract created by Sensible Solutions AI
In abstract:
- PCWorld found that Google Chrome silently downloads a 4GB AI mannequin known as Gemini Nano to customers’ computer systems with out specific consent.
- This AI mannequin offers native options like textual content summarization and rip-off warnings, however consumes vital cupboard space on gadgets.
- Customers can completely take away the file by disabling “On-device AI” in Chrome’s system settings. Detailed directions are supplied beneath.
Google’s Chrome browser is already a infamous storage hog, however now comes phrase that it’s crowding our PC drives in a brand new manner: with an area AI mannequin. That mannequin, noticed by That Privateness Man, will get silently downloaded to your PC or Mac upon putting in Chrome, and it gobbles up a whopping 4GB of cupboard space.
Spoiler alert: Sure, you may take away the file, and I’m going to point out you ways. However first, some particulars on what’s occurring.
The precise file is named weights.bin. On my Mac, I discovered it in Chrome’s Functions Help folder in Finder:
~/Library/Utility Help/Google/Chrome/OptGuideOnDevice Mannequin/
Home windows customers will discover the file within the AppData listing:
C:Customers
AppDataLocalGoogleChromeUser DataOptGuideOnDeviceModel
To get to the AppData listing, press Home windows Key + R, kind %LOCALAPPDATApercentGoogleChromeUser Knowledge instantly into the dialog field, then press Enter.
On my Mac, the weights.bin file was taking over 4.27 GB of storage. When you delete the file, Chrome will merely reinstall it the following probability it will get.
So, what precisely is weights.bin and what does it do?
As That Privateness Man notes, that file contains the “weights” for Gemini Nano, the native AI mannequin that lives in Google’s Chrome browser. In contrast to Gemini within the cloud, Nano sits instantly in your PC and performs quite a lot of AI duties instantly in your system.
Among the many native AI duties that Gemini Nano might deal with embody summarizing internet pages you go to, organizing your Chrome tabs, warning you about on-line scams, and providing writing assist or rephrasing textual content as you kind, based on a Google assist web page.
Having an area AI mannequin in your machine gives an a variety of benefits relying on the duty, together with decrease latency and probably higher privateness (though Chrome should be sharing not less than a few of your browser exercise with Google HQ).
However native fashions additionally take up a whole lot of cupboard space. Gemini Nano’s 4GB footprint really isn’t dangerous so far as smaller native fashions go—the 31 billion-parameter model of Google’s Gemma 4 takes up 20 GB of storage, for instance, whereas the 128 billion-parameter Mistral Medium hogs an enormous 80 GB of house.
Once more, merely deleting the weights.bin file received’t work, as Chrome will routinely reinstall the lacking file. However you can take away the 4GB obtain one other manner: by altering a single Chrome setting. Simply go to Settings > System, then toggle the “On-device AI” setting to Off. Once I did that on my Mac, the weights.bin file disappeared instantly.
In fact, turning Chrome’s native AI setting off nixed Chrome’s native AI performance, together with textual content recommendations and rip-off warnings.
So far as Chrome quietly putting in the native AI mannequin in your system within the first place, it’s a matter of scorching debate. For his half, The Privateness Man calls out Google for depositing the file on customers’ PCs and not using a consent dialog—and he has a degree.
Shifting forward, although, we’re going to see increasingly desktop apps downloading native AI fashions onto our techniques, for higher or worse.
