Posted on 05/06/2026 4:21:51 PM PDT by Vendome
Ripple effect: Google started turning Chrome, the world's most popular web browser, into an AI browser last year in response to threats from popular AI-native rivals such as OpenAI. Recent reports have uncovered that this transition includes silently installing a large cache of AI weights on an unknown but potentially significant number of devices.
Google Chrome users who have noticed unusual disk activity or unexplained drops in available storage should look for a folder called "OptGuideOnDeviceModel" inside their Chrome directory. It holds roughly 4GB of weights for Google's Gemini Nano LLM, downloaded by the browser without user consent.
Deleting the folder offers no lasting relief – Chrome will simply redownload it. On Windows 11, the folder resides at %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\OptGuideOnDeviceModel. It has also been confirmed on Apple Silicon and Ubuntu machines.
Uninstalling Chrome entirely is the most effective way to remove the weights. However, those who wish to continue using the browser might be able to disable the download by entering "chrome://flags" into the address bar, finding an item called "Enables optimization guide on device on Android," and selecting "Disabled" from the adjacent dropdown menu. This is also how users can determine whether their device is eligible for the feature.
(Excerpt) Read more at techspot.com ...
The Chromium I’m using is already on Standard Protection
Never use chrome or Google search etc if I can help it.
Firefox has some weird AI enhancement on by default too
bkmk
Glad I use Vivaldi on my laptops. No built in AI to disable.
I gave up on Chrome when its performance became too bad in about 2020. I’ve been on Brave ever since, a slim version of Chrome.
Microsoft says “hold my beer” and stuck that garbage copilot 365 client on. I had a forced upgrade and it was running 3 copilot services in the back ground. System ground to a halt and took a full day to get all that crap removed.
Yep, very. Local AI models on your own PC can be a good thing....privacy and all...most people are using cloud-based (someone else’s server) AI & they see your AI “prompts”, etc.. Trouble is most large AI models running locally on a PC at home take tons of RAM (plus a good number of decent CPU cores too). Now enter “Open Claw”...it is the latest AI craze....thousands of people (esp. Japan & Korea) snapping up M5 chip Mac Mini PC’s to run Open Claw at their home 24/7 as a virtual personal assistant to take care of email, messages, & other tasks for them:
https://simplified.com/blog/automation/what-is-openclaw-ai-agent-explained
bump
bkmk
I switched from Chrome to Brave 7-8 years ago due to the same slow, bloated performance as you mentioned.
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