Google Chrome was found downloading and installing a local AI model, called Gemini Nano, that can take up 4GB or more of space on a hard drive. This was being done automatically without the consent of users. Microsoft’s Edge, which is also based on Chromium, has a similar feature; both use the same registry key GenAILocalFoundationalModelSettings as found in Microsoft documentation.
1. Open Registry Editor (REGEDIT.msc)
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\WOW6432Node\Google\Chrome
3. In the right window part, create a new DWORD value (32-bit), the name must be GenAILocalFoundationalModelSettings
4. double-clicked the new registry key and made sure the value is 1
You can do the same for Microsoft Edge, just do the same process at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Edge