Chrome Quietly Stores 4GB On-Device AI Model, Researcher Warns

A security researcher says Google Chrome secretly stores about 4GB of an on-device Gemini Nano AI model on users’ devices (in a folder called OptGuideOnDeviceModel) without requesting consent. Google claims the on-device model powers security features and can be turned off or removed in Chrome settings, with automatic uninstall if resources are low; some users may still see re-downloads if they haven’t fully disabled it. Users can check chrome://on-device-internals to verify presence and chrome://flags or system settings to disable the feature.