Google Chrome may have silently installed 4GB AI model on your computer. Here’s how to check

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Google Chrome may have silently installed 4GB AI model on your computer. Here’s how to check

By Jack Izzo
Publication Date: 2026-05-08 11:00:00

Claim:

Reporting from May 2026 accurately claimed that Google Chrome silently installed a 4-gigabyte artificial intelligence model on users’ devices without consent, and that the model reinstalls itself if deleted.

Rating:

  • The claim that Google Chrome installed a 4-gigabyte artificial intelligence model on users’ devices without their consent, and that the model reinstalls itself when deleted, was mostly true. 
  • We found the model, Google Gemini Nano, present on the computer of two Snopes employees who use Chrome on MacOS and one who uses Chrome on Windows. The 4-gigabyte file, called “weights.bin,” was located in a folder called “OptGuideOnDeviceModel,” in…

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