Yet there is another post a few rows down where people are losing their shit that Chrome has a local LLM model that uses a couple of GB of space for local-inference.
If it was such a good and laudable idea why didn't they tell me about it before they activated it? It seems to me like they avoided it in the hopes that I wouldn't notice, because, presumably if I had, I would have IMMEDIATELY disabled it.
Also why doesn't their task manager show that it's actually the one downloading? Why does it go out of it's way to hide this activity?
Since I have conky on my desktop I could catch this immediately, and take the action I preferred with my own computer, which was to _immediately_ disable it.
I've never had a "What's new" tab ever open because I disable the customized home page where that's displayed. I'm guessing you're not aware that's an option.
Please show me where in either of those documents it explains it's going to download a 4GB model.
Thank you for going out of your way to deny my exact experience. Do you think I'm doing this to rag on Google? And you're this eager to defend them?
I'm on gentoo. I have to update chrome manually. I updated it. On update I _never_ get a "what's new" page. I've had this profile for more than a decade so I have no actual idea why, but, I can absolutely tell you, I do *not* get one. After update it started consuming all my bandwidth. This use did not show in it's task manager. I have a metered connection. This is a problem for me. I worried it was a compromised plugin. I had to spend 10 minutes in Firefox discovering why chrome was doing this then going to the configuration and disabling this.
This was a disappointing experience. I'm sorry you feel differently; other than stating the obvious, I seriously have no idea what you and the other corporate defense squad members are trying to achieve with this gaslighting nonsense.
That makes sense. You aren't really "updating" at all. You're basically reinstalling a new Chrome on every update. It makes sense then that you aren't seeing "what's new" because that's not how a fresh install starts up.
I hate to be an apologist for anything but I think you are pointing fingers in the wrong place. The Google-official releases use the built-in automatic updater and do show What's New. This is a Gentoo release and they chose to do their own thing for updates.
> I've never had a "What's new" tab ever open because I disable the customized home page where that's displayed.
I'm not "denying your experience" of not having the what's new tab. I'm denying your explanation for it.
You wrongly thought it was due to disabling the home page, and then you were insulting to the parent with the snarky "I'm guessing you're not aware that's an option".
You were the one who wasn't aware of the real explanation. Now you make up a totally unwarranted accusations ("going out of your way to deny my exact experience", "gaslighting nonsense"), and add character assassination on top ("you're this eager to defend them?", "corporate defense squad members").
Your comment is extremely inappropriate. Please re-read the HN guidelines, especially:
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
> and then you were insulting to the parent with the snarky
And what did they say to me?
"I'm guessing you immediately close the What's New Chrome tab when you update?"
If that's not snarky then I don't know what is. It's rude, churlish, and presumptive. Yet you take absolutely no notice of this as if you didn't care to do anything other than attack me.
> You wrongly thought it was due to disabling the home page
And you are 100% certain it isn't? Why?
> Your comment is extremely inappropriate.
I think your definitions of "snarky" and "extremely" need to be adjusted. You've downvoted me, you disagree, I get that, what more do you want? You've persisted this conversation as if there is more to get from it but all you seem interested in is this off topic browbeating.
Instead of responding to the point, or engaging with it on any level, you've picked one small nit, and then attempted to derail the entire point with it. What /you/ are doing is inappropriate.
If it's so inappropriate then why did you reply? You can't have it both ways.
It doesn't matter. It's not a reason to be insulting back. I'm not insulting you here, even though you're insulting me.
> And you are 100% certain it isn't? Why?
I already explained. This is trivial to test. Another commenter here also provided the more likely explanation.
> If it's so inappropriate then why did you reply?
To let you know why, so you can learn from this. When people are insulting to me, I don't just ignore it so people can walk all over me. But I also don't insult back. I explain what they're doing so they can learn to have better manners.
It's not picking "one small nit", it's standing up to abusive language and behavior ("corporate defense squad members", "gaslighting nonsense"). Please be better in the future.
This is a bit disingenuous. People aren't losing their shit about a local model being installed. It's the lack of user autonomy. Just give the option to download a model instead of a silent install. It's not that hard. This is how every other local option works.
This is a weird take. If its not opt in or you’re shoe horning it into a browser, then that sucks. Nobody is getting enraged that an app for running local LLMs downloads data to do so.
Although you can opt out and even disable the download feature when you build them in some cases, most of the local LLM tools are too download–happy by default.
You don't understand the difference between "I run a local LLM because I chose to" vs "The browser chose to run a local LLM and I have no say"? You don't understand?
Not to mention that the LLM that I choose to run requires a monster machine and is infinitely more capable than whatever google chose to put on their browser?
I mean, none of this affects me because I don't use chrome, obviously, but you don't see the difference? Bewildering.
Damned if they do, damned if they don't.