"Google Chrome will steal 4 GB of disk space from your computer for its local large language model unless you opted out. It's called weights.bin and it's stored in a folder called OptGuideOnDeviceModel. What's more, if you track down the file and delete it, Chrome will download a fresh copy and reinstate it."
"This the what Google calls the "Nano" version of its Gemini local LLM, which powers its Prompt API. In April 2025, this Reddit post suggests the model was "just" 3 GB, but a Stack Overflow question says that by November 2025 it was already up to 4 GB."
"If you didn't opt out, Google has some info on how to disable it. In brief: in Chrome's address box, enter the special URL chrome://flags. In the resulting page, look for an entry named optimization-guide-on-device-model and set it."
Google Chrome has been silently installing a 4 GB local large language model called Gemini Nano on user computers without explicit consent. The model file, named weights.bin, is stored in a folder called OptGuideOnDeviceModel and automatically reinstalls if manually deleted. The discovery was announced by privacy advocate Alexander Hanff, noting the model has grown from 3 GB in April 2025 to 4 GB by November 2025. Users who disabled AI features early may not have the model installed. Google provides instructions to disable the feature through Chrome's flags settings (chrome://flags), specifically by adjusting the optimization-guide-on-device-model setting. The automatic installation raises concerns about storage space consumption and environmental impact at scale.
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