Google Chrome has been silently pushing a 4GB AI model to your device without asking

[bclaymiles]

For yall using Brave.

In 2016, Brave promised to remove banner ads from websites and replace
them with their own, basically trying to extract money directly from
websites without the consent of their owners

In 2016, CEO Brendan Eich unilaterally added a fringe, pay-to-win
Wikipedia clone into the default search engine list.

In 2017, they terminated the alternative browser Link Bubble, which they
had bought earlier.

In 2018, Tom Scott and other creators noticed Brave was soliciting
donations in their names without their knowledge or consent.

In 2019, Brave taunted Firefox users who visited their homepage.

In 2020, Brave got caught injecting URLs with affiliate codes when users
tried browsing to various websites.

In 2020, they silently started injecting ads into their home page
backgrounds, pocketing the revenue. There was a lot of pushback: "the
sponsored backgrounds give a bad first impression."

In 2021, Brave's TOR window was found leaking DNS queries, and a patch
was only widely deployed after articles called them out.

In 2022, Brave floated the idea of further discouraging users from
disabling sponsored messages.

In 2023, Brave got caught installing a paid VPN service on users'
computers without their consent.

In 2023, Brave got caught scraping and reselling people's data with
their custom web crawler, which was designed specifically not to
announce itself to website owners.

In 2024, Brave gave up on providing advanced fingerprint protection,
citing flawed statistics (people who would enable the protection would
likely disable Brave telemetry).

In 2025, Brave staff publish an article endorsing PrivacyTests and say
they "work with legitimate testing sites" like them. This article fails
to disclose PrivacyTests is run by a Brave Senior Architect.

In 2025, Brave taunted people searching for Firefox on the Google Play
Store. (The VP denied this occurred, but also demonstrated ignorance of
multiple different screenshots.)

In 2026, Brave releases a non bloated version called Origin, costs $60
with only 10 activations on Windows/macOS, but is completely free on
Linux. To gain market share and encourage major distros to replace
Firefox as default.

[[citation needed]]

I mean, the whole rant begins with a nonsense claim; Brave displaying their own banner ads over the ones on websites does not "extract money directly from websites" - it prevents websites from earning their commissions from their own ads, while Brave directly earns commisions from _their_ ads presented 'over' those website ads. Which is sh1tty behavior from the word 'go', but it's not what you claimed.

When you start with an objectively false claim, all the rest of the (unsourced) claims are immediately called into question.

I've no feelings about Brave positive or negative. I tried it once years ago, meh, deleted it.

 

[Axiarus]

[[citation needed]]

I mean, the whole rant begins with a nonsense claim; Brave displaying their own banner ads over the ones on websites does not "extract money directly from websites" - it prevents websites from earning their commissions from their own ads, while Brave directly earns commisions from _their_ ads presented 'over' those website ads. Which is sh1tty behavior from the word 'go', but it's not what you claimed.

When you start with an objectively false claim, all the rest of the (unsourced) claims are immediately called into question.

I've no feelings about Brave positive or negative. I tried it once years ago, meh, deleted it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/1j1pq7b/list_of_brave_browser_controversies

All citations are here.

 

[bclaymiles]

Using Firefox and Librewolf on Linux, the only way to get rid of evil is to get rid of evil.

I use FF as my primary browser (229 open tabs, not even breathing hard), and Opera as my 'alt' browser; it's helpful to keep subsets of some website on a separate browser for easier management, and I like Opera's 'workspaces'. Since it's chromium-based, it suffices for the majority of sites that are too lazy to code for more than one Borg//// I mean browser.

Librewolf works as a sort of bastion privacy browser for me when doing exfiltration and hacking into banks and the federal government.

Okay, not really, I wouldn't know eff-all about actually doing that sort of stuff, but I do use it for logins via faux identities used for privacy purposes where I don't want sites 'imprinting' identity tracing/tracking into my regular browsers.

 

[bclaymiles]

https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/1j1pq7b/list_of_brave_browser_controversies

All citations are here.

First link in that post uses an archive.is url. No thanks, I don't visit russian espionage/propaganda sites.

I know I know, there's a lot of other links there that aren't associated with the commie-rat-b@st@rds. Thanks for linking to meaningful resources.

 

[scoffer]

AI is an enemy of the people.

There........that's better.

 

[OortCloud]

Now tell us how many metric tons of CO2 are generated by the entire internet as a whole each day, then we'll have something to compare it to.

Saying something isn't bad because you can find something even worse is a pretty daft argument. It's like saying "Jack the Ripper wasn't bad because he only killed 5 people when Ted Bundy killed 30" or "The War in Iran is OK because it's only been 60 days so far when WW2 was 5 years"...

 

[scoffer]

Not if you invested in in, AI made me big money in the last 5 years.
And not for work either, AI makes my job easier. Freeing up headspace.

Do you still "google" stuff? I don't get why some people dislike AI so much, learn to actually use it well, I'd say

AI is not going anywhere, it has just started, still early days. You won't see AI go away from here. It will only improve massively.

AI will improve massively? And you know this for certain...how exactly? Because you're invested in it?

 

[Hecate91]

AI will improve massively? And you know this for certain...how exactly? Because you're invested in it?

Reminds me of how people said crypto would make everything better, because they had so much invested in it.

 

[Rapob]

AI will improve massively? And you know this for certain...how exactly? Because you're invested in it?

Because I am not stupid and work in tech. I know what direction companies are going and the progress and goals of AI. We have not even started.

 

[Rapob]

Reminds me of how people said crypto would make everything better, because they had so much invested in it.

How would crypto make anything better? People just trade it to make money, nothing else. That is what I did too. Never thought it would change anything, even when I had millions invested in it.

Don't compare AI to crypto. You have seen nothing yet. Mark my words. Agentic AI is coming.

And yes I am heavily invested in tech and therefore AI, because I am not stupid. This is also part of the reason why I am a multi millionaire today.

Some people just don't get it... Making money is easy. Complaining is waste of time.

Naysayers will miss out, as usual.

 

[bclaymiles]

Saying something isn't bad because you can find something even worse is a pretty daft argument. It's like saying "Jack the Ripper wasn't bad because he only killed 5 people when Ted Bundy killed 30" or "The War in Iran is OK because it's only been 60 days so far when WW2 was 5 years"...

"Saying something isn't bad"

I didn't say something isn't bad. Argument is moot.

 

[Cabuzzi]

I haven't installed a Chrome broswer in any of my pc's or laptops (yes alas Edge is there). Utter POS browser, by an utter POS company. If I must suffer ChromeOS it will be through Brave or Vivaldi. Firefox all the way for me.

Firefox isn't perfect, as most webpage devs build for Chrome, and there are always a few nits here and there when using Firefox, but it's still the browser I use 99% of the time. If I need compatibility, I run Brave (Chromium-based).

 

[LimyG]

I don't recall *anyone* having Google Chrome downloaded onto their device without them downloading it themselves. Do you? If you choose to install an app, you can't complain about the features it chooses to implement.

You are right of course. But 4GB is a fair bit of storage. I think that before downloading/installing chrome the size of the file should be highlighted. I know we can do that easily, but a typical user probably wouldn't.

Or perhaps I'm just an idealist?

Regardless, I don't consider it a huge deal either way. But it is typical and feels sneaky.
Those who won't stand for this simply switch browser.

 

[Gars]

The autor need to be more careful when he enters the steps in his colleague Rob.

 

[LimyG]

The autor need to be more careful when he enters the steps in his colleague Rob.

??

 

[LimyG]

LibreWolf has security to the level you want. With all security/anti finger printing etc ON, I think it really is a secure and close to anon while still funtional and speedy.

I've been using it for at least 3 months now, and have just installed it on my main PC.
It has auto update if the user wishes. A pretty easy to follow setup with various levels of security. It's fast too.

Not the best thing since sliced bread, and a distant fork of Mozilla Firefox, but so far it's the first purely security and anonimity focused browser that works. (for my subjective tastes)

I have 100s of hour on it now, and would recommend giving it try. You can even use it without installation as a simple .exe program. That's how I tested it before installing.

I'm sure some folks will disagree with me, fair enough, and welcome if poster has actually spent a reasonable amount of time testing/using it. I'd love to hear any downsides I may have missed.

 

[ZbearIT]

Chrome is a cancer and it must be eradicated !!

 

[Athlonite69]

Not if you don't install Chrome it won't

 

[Septimus]

It has done for years and no one gave a f**k. Some "sleuth" found something that has been documented since 2024. FFS.

 

[LimyG]

Not if you don't install Chrome it won't

Very funny.

In fact, you may actually have a point though. Edge is pre-installed, but I bet not a few typical users simply install Chrome without a second thought.

In the settings section, the defaults are incredible, Check it out if you haven't done so, there are, I don't know 30 settings approx. Some of them are in default state (on, or at best, "ask everytime.") are highly intrusive, dangerous even.

Folks here willl be aware of this, but after each update best to check. they add new stuff, always defaulted to on. "Allow access to you local network." or "Allow web apps to access your device." Added a few months ago. Defaulted to on. There are worse.

 

[Hotlynx16]

Checked mine but didn't find it, rarely use Chrome, only for a couple accounts that don't work right in Firefox!