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.
It still does, for models that were sold that way. My Pixel 4 still gets free uploads to Google Photos. Which I should really move to immich one of these days.
What is a Google One plan?
Edit. Oh i see. Is that 15gb the original storage for gmail and stuff? Are we that old that we’re filing that up? Oh man
I remember when Gmail was advertised as unlimited email storage. Then they limited it. Then they sold more storage for it.
I remember when the Google Pixel offered free unlimited high quality photo backup to excuse the fact it had no SD card.
Then it offered free medium quality photo backup to excuse the fact it had no SD card.
Then it offered nothing because it had squeezed serious competitors with SD cards out of the market.
It still does, for models that were sold that way. My Pixel 4 still gets free uploads to Google Photos. Which I should really move to immich one of these days.