Chrome removes claim of On-device Al not sending data to Google Servers
old.reddit.com373 points by newsoftheday 6 hours ago
373 points by newsoftheday 6 hours ago
It seems to me that adding AI to desktop apps and sending the data back to the mothership for processing is an amazing way to collect data from people who, for the most part, would be completely unaware it's even happening.
Heck, most of them think the Internet is Chrome.
You mean that chrome is an internet explorer?
No, I think it was meant literally. Like the IT Crowd skit where Jen refers to the Internet Explorer desktop shortcut as "the button for the internet".
> adding AI to desktop apps and sending the data back to the mothership for processing is an amazing way to collect data from people
Wasn't that the entire point of Windows Recall as well?
The even more frustrating thing here is that after auto-updates everything new [including AI "features"] is turned ON by default.
I do like how Firefox now has a "prevent future AI integrations" checkbox[0], but I just don't believe it anymore (i.e. that it won't magically `uncheck` itself and then enable features I've not requested/authorized).
Which is why I just used an LLM to help me create a local network admin rule to disable the update engine entirely (this SHOULD. NOT. BE. NECESSARY).
[•] <https://www.perplexity.ai/search/b0d3bf5d-7ac7-4d4c-b6c6-32b...>
[0] with a sick darkpattern (for most users to laregly ignore)
It would be a reasonable deduction for someone who doesn't have the time or interest to understand the internals.
I called this out when it was announced on here. Supposedly the team lead replied to my comment saying this wouldn't happen. I rolled my eyes but asked will android be able to use those models for ex filtration. No reply. And apparently the original claim was not true either lol.
Maybe I'm misremembering it. Google is awful. My goodness. I hate Android and can't wait to be rid of it. Graphene and it's buddies can't roll it fast enough
My belief is that the AI business is all about data collection. The value isn't so much in the quality of the models (that's what enterprise customers and developers pay to get), but in the amount of data that comes "for free" to whoever hosts the models. And then it's worth whoever buys it thinks it is, like insurers or advertisers.
Yeah I was wondering how long it would take for a browser company to do something like this. It lets them scrape data without having to deal with anti-scraping provisions on websites, since now their training data collection gets spread across the entire Chrome userbase and they're able to offload the work of bypassing the Cloudflare captchas or whatever to their end users.
Google doesn't need to that because Google is not affected by any anti-scraping provisions, every website literally begs Google to get scraped.
"My belief is the AI business is all about data collection."
The "business" of so-called "tech" companies is all about data collection
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/05/06/the-worlds-most...
It’s because they’re all in bed with the Government who wants the same thing. Think of them as an extension of the NSA/CIA and the byproduct of the data collection is being able to sell Ads to make money.
Yes. It is seriously not a coincidence that all of the ai companies are now offense contractors for the department of war. It's also not a coincidence they want to ban vpns, and force people to verify themselves with IDs, biometrics and their phones for all of their activities. Meanwhile... Bots can run free.
Surveillance capitalism is so stupid.
100% and if you have data other model providers can't 'scrape' (e.g. Google access to Chrome user/usage data) you're in a better position to win.
This seems somewhat specious - it's also quite possible that they just altered the wording to make it less verbose. Does anyone have access to the link "Learn more about on-device AI"?
If Chrome starts sending data from the browser back to Google, that's going to be a huge compliance issue. If you work for a company that processes customer data in the browser, you're going to need to ban Chrome.
I know that I'm in a bit of a bubble with this one, but I am surprised there is still anyone using Chrome instead of Brave. I get the dependency on Gmail other Google-specific tools, but the built-in ad blocking and Google-free aspects of it made me switch instantly and haven't look back after years.
Brave started off incredibly sketchy and with terrible reputation, for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999
I haven't ever considered it since and I assume many others are in the same boat.
> Brave started off incredibly sketchy
Chrome has stayed incredibly sketchy from the beginning, when Google gained marketshare by sneaking Chrome into the installer for other products that people intentionally downloaded.
Then Chrome did things like "accidentally" uploading your entire browsing history to Google servers when you signed into Gmail.
Now they have declared war on ad blockers, despite the government warning that ad networks are too big a malware vector to ignore.
That's a different kind of sketchy than whatever crypto ad replacement stuff that Brave was accused of doing.
The only difference is that Google is still doing new sketchy things with Chrome today, two decades later.
Same here. I don't care how they responded to the backlash, the fact that it happened in the first place was enough for me.
Brave is my default browser for non-sensitive tasks; e.g. most web browsing, GitHub, news, etc. The built-in ad-blocker & tracker blocker alone is worth it. Use chrome for testing. Stock Firefox for anything sensitive.
I'm similar but instead of brave, which I don't trust, prefer Firefox.
I don't trust Firefox either, so I use Zen, which is based on Firefox and also changes the UI.
Zen lost my trust since: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43443494
In my mind, no browser is perfect. However, as far as I can tell that’s not nearly as sketchy as the title implies. It’s for local debugging.
Zen has other issues for me on Ubuntu (eating a ton of resources) which is why I usually use FF. But I put Zen in a different category from Brave and definitely better than Chrome.
I switched to Firefox when Chrome started messing with the ad blockers. Haven't really had any issues. I prefer developer tools on Chrome but I rarely need to use them anyway.
The trouble is that Mozilla has admitted they can't survive without Google's revenue. You are basically using Google by proxy unless you use a truly independent browser engine of they get blocked by Cloudflare for not having enough fingerprinting tech.
Mozilla is paid when people search on Google through Firefox. If you're not searching with Google, you're not using Google by proxy.
(Work at Mozilla, but not related to this - this is just public info.)
(Ungoogled) Chromium and Firefox are both projects that are open source and readily available. The code is sitting there ready for you to compile. More users = more donations. You can be the change you wanna see.
What browser can genuinely claim independence from Google? Chromium browsers are all arguably in the same camp. If FF is implicated, then so are forks like Zen.
Safari is probably the only one?
> You are basically using Google by proxy unless you use a truly independent browser engine
This conclusion doesn't follow your premise. Google has to pay because if Mozilla dies, so does the claim of any real competition on the browser engine market. So everyone agrees Firefox's engine is truly independent. Google pays so Firefox users don't use anything that has to do with Google.
If you think about it, the only real way to not hurt Google is for Firefox to stop existing. Chrome would end up being spun off from Google.
> Chrome would end up being spun off from Google.
You mean, with reasonable administrations, caring for antitrust laws.
I don't agree that you are using Google by proxy when Firefox has more technical independence from Google than Chrome and can be quickly decoupled from the few Google defaults it has, search and safe browsing.
Brave’s owner is a very sketchy dude. With all the news that were happening around brave, all the shitcoin stuff, I wouldn’t be surprised if the browser is mining crypto.
The single affiliated link scandal is enough to not touch that project with a ten foot pole.
I'm just surprised people use Chrome at all. Google has proven over and over they can't be trusted and will exploit you every chance they get.
Because some things only work in Chrome. It's a fact. It's terrible.
We're the frogs being boiled, over the last decade. People sounded the alarms, but they were looked at like they had tin foil on their heads. Now, it's clear they were right.
I'm speaking generally, of course. I use Firefox for all my personal stuff, except for those situations where it doesn't work.
>> Because some things only work in Chrome.
What things? Looks like an urban myth.
I'm aware of a few things, myself:
1) Google properties
1a) Chromecast
2) a few web-based games that were really pushing the envelope on web APIs and didn't bother testing on Firefox
3) WebUSB, commonly used for some things like keyboard customization apps
Which Google properties are Chrome only? I'm not doubting you but the major ones (search, mail, maps, ads) are extremely cross-platform.
In the past there were features that didn't work at all; I used to hit those regularly. Device setup flows, AV features, etc. These days, it's never "this doesn't work on other browsers". It's always "this is worse on other browsers", whether because they don't test it or because they don't care.
The driver and store signup/portal for doordash returns a 403 forbidden on firefox.
A lot of IT now curates the extensions for the browsers and doesn't allow extensions not on the whitelist and then they basically just only do that work on Chrome and disable Firefox. It's kinda self defeating in the long run imo but that's the problem in the industry.
I've run into a few restaurant sites whose ordering pages just do not work properly (or at all) in Firefox. Also webgl2 performance is unfortunately still much better in Chrome vs Firefox; as an example, FoundryVTT (virtual tabletop software) works fine in Firefox but is a stuttery mess IME (though it has improved slightly in the last few years).
I'd bet my bottom dollar those websites still work in Edge, Chromium and Brave. The alternative to Chrome is not Firefox, it's just Not Chrome.
Chrome likes to make up new "standards" and then some websites adopt them immediately.
That said, I can only remember two instances of that slightly inconveniencing me in the past, and both times I was inconvenienced by a Google-run website: once upon a time Google Earth refused to work, and once upon a time I couldn't tweak my Google Meet background. Both are no longer the case.
Citation needed. I've seen the opposite--unless there's a very specific niche that can't be otherwise solved, there's huge internal resistance to going it alone.
The biggest counterexample I can think of: WebUSB was critical to Chromebooks supporting external devices, but I can see why Safari might not want it. It has Firefox support at last, though.
95% of people who use Chrome have no clue what browser they are using.
They got Chrome when it was bundled with every single installer ever for about a decade (which was so prolific and scummy that Microsoft had to make the "default app" picker system more defensive, because Chrome was abusing it more than microsoft apps were).
When you installed Java, you also got Chrome set as your default browser with no interaction.
Or they one click downloaded it from Google.com because of a giant banner saying "You gotta download chrome"
It's insane to me how rarely people on HN seem to actually know the history of this. Everyone who worked in tech support in the 2010s experienced this.
It was an identical strategy that most spyware and adware used at the time.
Why would people still be using a computer from 2010? That might have made sense in 2015, but beggars belief in 2026.
Ok, why Brave though? There's Safari, Chromium, LibreWolf, Ladybird, and plenty of others.
1. Because it's most popular. Guaranteed support and "monkey see monkey do".
2. The adblocking is preconfigured, and non technical users trying to find the right extensions has a very bad history of unintentional malware. Ad block? Adblock plus? Ublock? Ublock origin? This is a great example of what floors a lot of technical folk who would be "why not just install ublock origin" and fail to understand the "why should I when I can just get Brave one and it works"
3. Most people don't use macs
Librewolf meets 2 and 3 (it comes with ublock origin preinstalled), but admittedly fails 1 quite badly.
Not everyone is on Mac. In fact, most people use Windows. So Safari and Ladybird are out of the question, that's two gone.
Brave is has pre-configured as block that works on everything, also a polished sync experience.
Vivaldi's sync experience is nice as well. Top notch customization too.
Vivaldi is often behind on chromium security patch. In fact they are right now.
I was very vehement about needing to stay in Chromium — until I tried Zen browser and it turns out I didn’t! (Unless I wanted to watch Prime Video)
After years of using alternative to chrome (Firefox, Chromium, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, Edge, etc ...) I have stopped fighting the choice of IT for installing and setting Chrome as the default browser on a Mac. I still use Firefox when I can and religiously reroute URLs to it where possible, but this is beating me down and I would rather spend time playing with LLMs rather than continue this struggle.
I was using Firefox, Vivaldi, Zen, and finally got fed up with various issues that Zen was having, so I switched to Waterfox. I am very happy and the browser is very fast; difference is immense.
If you're anti-Google, use Firefox. It's hypocritical to use the browser they're paying to build, then complain about how they generate revenue to fund it.
I find Brave's UI uglier than Chrome's.
Unfortunately, there is no way to switch back to the stock Chromium look.
You’re definitely in a bubble. Google advertises Chrome on TV. Most users haven’t even heard of Brave.
"I am surprised there is still anyone using Chrome instead of Brave."
Bubble indeed. No one should use Brave.
I want to use a browser engine that is not developed/owned by Google, so I use Firefox. I also don't want to support Brave's CEO's politics, so I would not use Brave regardless.
why would you use brave with annoying crypto and no customization over superior Vivaldi?
To each their own, but I've been using Brave for a long time (5+ years I think?). It was one or 2 clicks to turn off the crypto stuff when I first installed it. It was straightforward and no dark patterns were employed. It has never come back, unlike what Google and Firefox tend to do with their annoying features. It even syncs my preferences to any new browser I add so I only had to do it on one computer once and never worry about it again.
The web's dependency on Chromium engines is deeply concerning, I agree. I used Firefox for a long time. But at this point, IMO Brave is the most pragmatic choice if you want a browser that's not Google but "just works" with the modern web.
Why did I had to come so much down this thread, before seeing a mention of my favorite browser?
Well, why would I want to use Brave?
Brave is the Google empire aka chromium.
I use thorium, which also belongs to the empire, so it is not really any different to Brave - but I can use ublock origin still, so that's better. I think we are all in the Google empire here. Praising Brave as alternative, simply does not make a whole lot of sense really.
Firefox is a bit outside of it but it basically got rid of most of its users. When I use firefox, I can not play audio on youtube videos. It works fine with thorium. I tried to convince the firefox developer who said everyone on Linux must use pulseaudio (I don't) but there is no reasoning with Mozilla hackers here. He thinks he knows better than everyone else does. (I could recompile firefox from source, but Mozilla uses mozconfig still: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/xsoft/firefox... - they are too incompetent to transition into meson or cmake. A failing project, no wonder it lost most of its users. Titanic got nothing on the Firefox team.)
I have never heard of Brave, please tell me more
Edit: downvoting a request for insight on something? Mediocre
+1 for Brave. Been on it for years and it’s fantastic. Strongest security settings without issue.
O no they gave you BAT for visiting websites. Ahhh crypto everyone run!
I'm not familiar with this?
With the BAT aspect? You get tokens for seeing ads. It never really took off but kudos for trying.
Also hilarious that I got downvoted on my main comment but nobody was willing to show themselves.
My theory is that, since I'm going to do things like banking in my browser, I want one that has a lot of skin in the game. Chrome being backed by Google has trillions of dollars on the line should they ever do anything truly evil. Though this sneaky 4GB download comes close.
There's no skin in the game if they do not think they'll be meaningfully punished by government or consumers for their wrongdoings.
And they have trillions riding on milking you for all your data and ad impressions.
Which they seem to think they'll get, regardless of the quality of their web browser. Most people are entrapped by Android anywho.
Edge and Chrome could both be eliminated tomorrow and those trillions would be safe.
You’re the product, not the browser.
As soon as "don't be evil" became a topic for debate it was over, if you're surprised you haven't been paying attention.
Surely there's a googler on here who actually knows whether they are doing this. Anyone actually know or is this post all about Chrome bashing and speculation?
Certainly. You think they're going to comment? That itself would be another headline article.
When Google did that, did they default the "sending data" feature to off?
Do I even need to ask?
For someone with more knowledge than me: How does this affect other Chromium based browsers?
I did some web searches and see Brave has its own AI thing “Leo” that is intended to preserve privacy. But I don’t think that is on device. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I use Firefox myself but have family and friends who use various Chromium based browsers.
Thank you.
Brave's "Leo" AI is configurable enough to specify local endpoints for processing, instead of going wherever they want it to go. I've set it up to use my own systems, and it works just fine like that.
If you have a beefy enough device, then yes this can be done on-device.
My guess is that this falls under a Google service and the models themselves wouldn't be added to open source Chromium. Even if it were, Chromium forks would likely exclude it like they did for FLoC because of its unpopularity.
Also, does this affect Chrome for iOS, Android, and iPadOS?
The docs say "not yet."[0] My guess is that for Android they probably plan to enable it for high end phones, and for iOS they'll probably just stick to non-API AI features.
[0]: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/prompt-api#hardware-req...
Just today Google launched it's health app on Android and promised to not use people's data to sell them ads.
I called that bullshit, guess this article is just proving my point.
Use anything BUT Chrome or Edge.
Since the thread evolved into browser comparisons, I'd like to endorse a better uBlock ('s fork) - AdNausem.
It doesn't block ads. It clicks them first, and then blocks them.
I don't want websites to loose revenue because of my adnlocker. I want them to make extra money because of it!
I'm not affiliated, but would like the project to get more followers. This can stop ads once and for all.
These "clicks" are likely identified as fraudulent and dropped by the ad network. So you still pay the cost of downloading and running all the advertising JS and you still get tracked by the ad networks, all for nothing.
https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/wiki/FAQ#how-does-adnause...
You seem more knowledgeable in how browsers and js work than me. Does the below text still mean that AdNausem is downloading and running all the advertising JS?
Here's what's in the link: >AdNauseam 'clicks' Ads by issuing an HTTP request to the URL to which they lead. In current versions this is done via an XMLHttpRequest (or AJAX request) issued in a background process. This lightweight request signals a 'click' on the server responsible for the Ad, but does so without opening any additional windows or pages on your computer. Further it allows AdNauseam to safely receive and discard the resulting response data, rather than executing it in the browser, thus preventing a range of potential security problems (ransomware, rogue Javascript or Flash code, XSS-attacks, etc.) caused by malfunctioning or malicious Ads.
Basically zero ads are just static images with a link, they're dynamically loaded by JS when you open the page. The JS collects as much tracking data about you as it can, sends that off to the ad network servers which run a live auction to determine who will pay the most to show an ad to you right now, then returns that ad for the JS to display.
AdNauseam not loading the response to the "click" request makes it trivially easy to flag as fraudulent, because a real click would load and run the response.
What metrics does the ad network use to identify the clicks as "fraudulent"?
The same metrics any site uses to identify bot behavior. It's a closely guarded secret because if the attackers knew what metrics they used the attackers would know how to not get caught.
Another reply pointed out that AdNauseam just makes an http request to simulate a "click" and throws away the response. A real click would load and execute the response so it's trivially easy for ad networks to detect AdNauseam "clicks".
How will it stop ads if it rewards them with money?
It makes them burn money with no effect. Doesn't work every time, but still sends a message.
It rewards Google with the advertiser's money, and the advertisers don't like paying for extremely low conversion rates.
Because it could eventually be detected as click-fraud, and ad networks hate paying out for click-fraud.
As soon as data starts being exfiltrated to Google (or any Big Tech firm), be sure that governments will demand their copy of the stream too.
The non-disclosure clauses in mass surveillance legislation will ensure the process is opaque to users.
You’ll only find out about it when your door is smashed down and all your devices are seized, because Chrome’s crappy 4GB AI model misinterpreted an innocent photo of your kid in a paddling pool.
I still don't understand why so many people have accepting using an ad company's browser.
The motivation vectors exist here to ensure that, over time, Chrome behaves in ways the end user DOES NOT WANT.
"on-device" is doing a lot of heavy lifting when the device is a thin client to Google's servers wearing a trench coat.
Has anyone found a browser with comparably good dev tools to Chrome?
You could try Helium (https://helium.computer/), it's a de-googled chrome and has the same devtools.
Replay.io has a browser that does time travel debugging, which is really really neat.
It's on-device AI spyware, really. It collects intelligence about the user, summarizes it and sends it to Google, all paid by the user's electricity bill. Deviously clever.
What we learn: we can not trust Google.
You're just now learning this? There are whole books about it (check out "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" by Shoshana Zuboff)
I mean to be expected of Google. Even their Google Pay sends data to their servers whenever you use it to make payments, effectively also making it so you can't even use it without service. Apple Pay does not, runs the whole thing on-device, and not only is private, but as a result also enables payments entirely offline.
>Apple Pay does not, runs the whole thing on-device
so when I use the physical card that is also on Apple Pay, and Apple Pay tells me I just made a transaction as if I had used Apple Pay, that is all happening on my device? what online service is my phone using to track my account with Visa or my credit card issuer, and it's polling or push?
You get a notification from Apple Pay when you pay with your physical card? Because I only get a notification from my bank's app whenever I use my physical card. Apple Pay notifications only pop up when using Apple Pay itself.
> You get a notification from Apple Pay when you pay with your physical card?
I do. Which is sometimes annoying if somebody else is looking at my screen.
Maybe it sends the payload after coming back online, but for I can for instance leave with only my galaxy watch 6, which doesn't have esim, and I'm able to make payments as long as I connect it with my phone before leaving the house.
If your phone doesn't have connection does it still work on your galaxy watch? Or if you leave the phone behind?
I think the comment's saying that they leave the phone at home, and the watch works by itself as long as it was connected to the phone before leaving the house.
Google Pay works for a limited amount of uses in offline mode.
https://9to5google.com/2023/12/20/google-wallet-without-inte...
I'm willing to bet that it's just for telemetry, but this kind of stuff just lends credence to the crazies claiming Google wants to create some kind of absurd botnet with people's devices.
> Apple Pay does not, runs the whole thing on-device, and not only is private, but as a result also enables payments entirely offline.
Apple Pay still does send a lot of telemetry about your payments though. https://duti.dev/randoms/wip-location-services/
Wow...that seriously may change my long standing anti-Mac disdain to pro-Mac advocacy, very interesting, even Gemini confirmed what you're saying.
Temporary escape hatch: https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium
Google weighs in on Chrome's weights.bin controversy https://www.androidauthority.com/google-chrome-weights-bin-f...
They're probably doing some degenerate form of [1].
I too am surprised anyone uses Chrome, but I will admit to feeling similarly surprised by how many people use Brave. The company seems so sketchy to me, and I wonder why people who presumably care about web standards are so willing to use Chromium-based anything too.