BREAKING: [Why bother asking?] Google may have downloaded a 4GB AI model to your system without asking or permission

Ah, the famous Google arrogance is back in full swing! Reports are pouring in that Google has silently (why bother asking or informing?) been downloading a 4GB local AI model to users as part of a Chrome browser update. While in theory local AI is better than spy-heavy cloud AI (Google warns that their conventional AI features send data to Google AND may be viewed by [oh-so-trustworthy?] humans), 4GB matters to a lot of people, especially on laptops with smallish SSDs. A typical Chromebook for example may only have 64GB total and a big chunk of that used by the OS! 128GB laptops are also common.

It appears that not everybody has received this massive AI model file. It may only be downloaded when certain AI features are enabled. There are various ways to check for this and to disable this feature, mostly involving Chrome Settings->System and various Chrome internal settings that most users don't ever play with. One of my Linux systems doesn't seem to have this at all, while a browser on a new Mac Neo did, and I apparently gained about 4GB of additional free space as soon as I turned off the AI features that I never knew were turned on (since I never touch any of them -- and that's my recommendation to you as well).

We're back to the dark days of Google philosophy. Don't bother asking, don't bother informing. Assume that 4GB doesn't matter to anybody.

You need a time machine to find "Don't be evil" with Google anymore.

A horrible shame.

L

#google #ai #chrome

This absurd disregard for consent is why my computer is full of so many spite forks of stuff. gram instead of zed instead of VS Code. Waterfox instead of Firefox instead of Chrome. Debian instead of macOS instead of Windows. And on and on.
#privacy #google #gemini

https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-silent-nano-install/

@atoponce Time for #degoogle and #diday !

#Google

@nixCraft
Reminded of the disgusting poster from the 70s:

"Eat shit.

5,000,000,000 flys can't be wrong."

#GoogleIsEvil #Google

Having been part of a project attempting to measure the carbon footprint of serving web pages I can affirm that using the internet is not a trivial cost for the planet.

https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-silent-nano-install/

#AI #privacy #ePrivacy #Compliance #GDPR #Google #Chrome #Gemini #ESG #Environment #Sustainability #Climate #law

Alt...

Screenshot of a web page as per link Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. 4 May 2026 By Alexander Hanff Image in shades of orange, ochre and brown of a dessicated landscape with a creek that might have fire rather than water flowing at its bottom

"Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone"

https://www.theregister.com/2026/05/01/buy_a_foss_fondleslab/

I use a #Librem5 #Linux #phone. With the default #PureOS operating system.

Enjoy your #freedom, break free from #Google and #Apple.

Have a full Linux computer in your pocket that you can also use for calling.

Questions? Ask me.

#opensource #digitalsovereignty #FOSS #MobileLinux #privacy

MASS optimizes multi-agent LLM systems by interleaving prompt and topology search: block-level prompts, topology rejection sampling, then workflow-level prompts.

Topology gets quietly demoted. Ablation on Gemini 1.5 Pro: ~6% gain from block prompts, 3% from topology, 2% from workflow prompts. Prompt tuning dominates — contradicts the topology-first thesis of ADAS and AFlow.

https://benjaminhan.net/posts/20260430-multi-agent-system-search/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#LLMs #AI #AgenticSystems #PromptEngineering #Google #ICLR

People seem to be making a fuss over #google announcing ‘Google Search queries hit an “all time high” in the first quarter of 2026’

But you don’t have to read far to understand it. Google is searching google more. “Search had a strong quarter with AI experiences driving usage, queries at an all time high” and then later ‘an “auto-browse” feature that lets Chrome perform multi-step tasks on your behalf’. How much you wanna bet that the AI experiences and auto browsing include a lot of searching Google?

I think that would be hysterical, since the bots don’t read ads, that AI could drive up Google’s search costs without increasing their search revenues.

And how long until Google realises that it’s a bot searching instead of a human, and they start putting words and phrases into replies they send the bots, so they advertise things or steer results to things google profits from? Do it aggressively when you know there’s no human here to notice. Just a credulous agent who accepts all of it at face value.

https://www.theverge.com/tech/920815/google-alphabet-q1-2026-earnings-sundar-pichai

Apparently, #Google has lost track of their goal for #Android "We wanted to make sure that there was no central point of failure, where one industry player could restrict or control the innovations of any other. " https://web.archive.org/web/20120501080416/http://source.android.com/about/philosophy.html

That page is 404 Not Found now...

#KeepAndroidOpen

Reported 2 more adverts scam products to #Google Trust & Safety Team but
all replies appear to be auto-generated / templates with no human review as reply is non-specific to the advert reported.

A common factor is that said items plug into a UK mains electrical socket (outlet) and btw are indisputably targeted at UK audiences due to pricing advertised in £.

Products based on deception about features/function with/without fake components are already unlawful to promote and may be unsafe.

https://blog.apnic.net/2026/04/28/google-hits-50-ipv6/

#blog #ipv6 #internet #Apnic #statistics #google

🆕 blog! “Contactless Payments with GrapheneOS”

Google's monopolistic stranglehold on Android results in poor experience for power-users, and artificially restricts choice for those who have older phones. For example, Google Wallet is the de facto way to use NFC payments on Android. There's one problem though - it only works with Google's Android. If you have…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/06/contactless-payments-with-grapheneos/
⸻
#android #google #GrapheneOS #nfc

💥 #Google Photos confirme que sa dernière mise à jour l'autorise à scanner toutes vos #photos afin d'« utiliser des images réelles de vous et de vos proches » pour la génération d'#images par #IA

Fuyez !

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2026/04/20/google-starts-scanning-all-your-photos-as-new-update-goes-live

#IntelligenceArtificielle #ViePrivée #Privacy

hurk

if, like me, you're the admin of a Google Workspace, you probably get randomonthly emails about useless new features they're adding that you instadelete

this week's gspam titled "New Workspace Intelligence admin controls" proudly announces that all of your Calendar, Drive, Docs, Gmail and Chat data has been auto-opted-in for mass ingestion by gemini

yes, you have to manually disable it in the Admin panel:

Admin -> Generative AI -> Gemini for Workspace -> Workspace Intelligence Sources -> Off

#google

Alt...

A screenshot of the Google Workspace admin panel, showing that Gemini is automatically ingesting data from Chat, Calendar, Gmail and other Google products automatically.

#Google gate-keeping #Android is not only an #EU #DMA issue, developers and users will be affected all over the world.

Our own @eighthave gave an interview last month talking about the balance between security and freedom.

Click here: https://www.aljazeera.net/tech/2026/3/14/%D8%AA%D8%B7%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A3%D9%86%D8%AF%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%AF-%D8%BA%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%B3%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%B1

(Fennec #FDroid has offline translation 😉)

And remember, #KeepAndroidOpen!

Of course #Google 's cloud docs webserver ignores the If-Modified-Since header. Because why be a good webcitizen when you're evil and/or lazy?

#http

I occasionally report egregious YT adverts to Google’s Trust & Safety team.

For the latest one, #Google found that for false advertising

misrepresenting the behaviour and function of plug-in "filter" to save money on "dirty power" that you are "charged for" but your appliances cannot use, in breach of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968,

it''s not against Google's policies to use Google's services for unlawful promotion concerning products well-known to be fake and of unknown quality and safety.

@thestrangelet @rav3ndust

If #Google ever successfully kills off the #FOSS #Android OSes, I'll probably get an iPhony and throw it in my bag... inside a Faraday bag. 😄

#Google to ignore robots.txt for some user agents. I’m taking steps to block these new ones. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/baekdal_so-google-has-created-a-new-user-agent-called-activity-7450475732453044224-dbC3

🆕 blog! “Android now stops you sharing your location in photos”

My wife and I run OpenBenches. It's a niche little site which lets people share photos of memorial benches and their locations. Most modern phones embed a geolocation within the photo's metadata, so we use that information to put the photos on a map.

Google's…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/04/android-now-stops-you-sharing-your-location-in-photos/
⸻
#android #geolocation #geotagging #google #OpenBenches

Ha! Google's AI gets this wrong* —
Ask Ethan: How did Artemis II break Apollo's distance record? - Big Think
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/how-artemis-ii-break-apollo-distance-record/
*h/t @startswithabang
https://mastodon.social/@startswithabang/116380940996324360
#Artemis #space #ArtemisII #AI #google

@neil I would say that there is a certain amount of #AppleEnvy at #Microsoft and #Google right now.

A #WalledGarden allows higher #Rent and cheapens compliance with legislation that attempts to restrict what users can do.

Open source - and thus backdoor-free - VPNs and e2ee are probably being targeted as preemptive obedience to future laws.

Open Street Maps: directs me through a road closed due to roadworks.

Google Maps: directs me to drive down a pedestrian walkway and through a tennis court.

I think I'll just read the road signs.

#Google #OpenStreetMap

#Google to tap into gas plant for #AIDatacenter in sharp turn from climate goals

#Texas power plant would emit 4.5m tons of carbon dioxide per year, more than that of the entire city of San Francisco

Dara Kerr, Thu 2 Apr 2026

"According to Crusoe’s 465-page permit application, the power plant would emit as much as 4.5m tons of carbon dioxide, a primary driver of climate change, per year. For comparison, the entire city of San Francisco emits about 4m tons of carbon dioxide annually."

Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/02/google-ai-datacenter

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/wZFzr

#GoogleSucks #AISucks #Datacenters #ClimateChange #ClimateDenial #FossilFuels #FossilFools

I was wondering why my photos were no longer getting #location tagged. Turns out the #Google fuckers only *allow* location tagging on #Android on "backed up" photos - i.e. giving them free map and image-training content. Screw that. I will just have to tag them manually, later.