By way of Clownfish TV comes this story.
“It’s not just Microsoft is stuffing everything full of AI, whether or not its users want it. It is now Google as well with Chrome. Apparently, they’re stuffing AI into Google Chrome. They did not ask people. And according to Futurism, fury is erupting after Google Chrome sneakily installs a 4 gigabyte AI model on users’ PC.”First, I must explain that Chrome is the default browser on our work computers, in my case a laptop issued by our IT department. While we can run others if we so desire, most of us use the default Chrome browser.
This might explain why at times my work laptop runs so slow.
Recently I checked Task Manager to find out how many processes were running under Chrome when I was using it. I had a single browser window open and four tabs within that window. I generally leave that window open all day as I do use it very often to get datasheets for electronic and optical components and the environmental information we are required to check to make sure our products meet US and International environmental regulations. I found that Chrome is running many processes even with only one browser window open, which certainly indicates why my laptop runs so slow at times. What did I find when I checked it?
Chrome was running 113 processes. One. Hundred. And. Thirteen.
It was also using a little over 4GB of RAM and between 10% and 40% of the CPU cycles. It has an Intel Core i7 CPU (16 cores) running at 2.2GHz. It also has 32GB of RAM. So this laptop is no slouch when it comes to performance.
Even seeing the info above I have to warn that the data seen does not automatically mean it is the AI program eating up all that RAM and CPU cycles. I need to run more tests to see if this happens all the time or only when I visit some websites. However, I do have to say I don’t see this when I use either Firefox or Brave as a browser. (A note – Brave uses Google’s Chromium as a base, but its code does not have any code that allows the download of the AI program.)
And hits keep on coming…