By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
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By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
Our team has been inspecting the Chromium code and disabling stuff from the very first version of Vivaldi (we have some posts about this in our blog, such as https://vivaldi.com/blog/news/alert-no-google-topics-in-vivaldi/ or https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/).
We've also been very outspoken about our dislike of the built-in AI trend in the browser industry, but in case there's still any doubts: yes, we disable all Gemini-related features, and we've been doing it for a while.
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By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
Our team has been inspecting the Chromium code and disabling stuff from the very first version of Vivaldi (we have some posts about this in our blog, such as https://vivaldi.com/blog/news/alert-no-google-topics-in-vivaldi/ or https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/).
We've also been very outspoken about our dislike of the built-in AI trend in the browser industry, but in case there's still any doubts: yes, we disable all Gemini-related features, and we've been doing it for a while.
@Vivaldi will you consider making it optional rather than fully removing it? Like an opt-in feature?
I know Vivaldi is very friendly when it comes to user choice.
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By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
Our team has been inspecting the Chromium code and disabling stuff from the very first version of Vivaldi (we have some posts about this in our blog, such as https://vivaldi.com/blog/news/alert-no-google-topics-in-vivaldi/ or https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/).
We've also been very outspoken about our dislike of the built-in AI trend in the browser industry, but in case there's still any doubts: yes, we disable all Gemini-related features, and we've been doing it for a while.
@Vivaldi I’d like to be able to hide the AI summary on Google’s search results page. This feature is very inaccurate and often gets things wrong. Plus, there’s no option to turn it off. It forces the summary onto users who don’t want it and wastes electricity.
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@Vivaldi will you consider making it optional rather than fully removing it? Like an opt-in feature?
I know Vivaldi is very friendly when it comes to user choice.
@lazza @Vivaldi There's no way this stuff should be a first class (mis)feature in the browser, even optionally.
Put it in an optional extension like it always should have been, only present if you install it intentionally.
"Always installed but off by default" has no user assurance that it's actually off and not suddenly going to get turned on somehow.
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@Vivaldi I’d like to be able to hide the AI summary on Google’s search results page. This feature is very inaccurate and often gets things wrong. Plus, there’s no option to turn it off. It forces the summary onto users who don’t want it and wastes electricity.
RE: https://hachyderm.io/@dalias/112490437948354523
@kyu3a @Vivaldi I think this should work in Vivaldi. It'd be nice if they'd make it the default or at least an option in the default list:
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By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
Our team has been inspecting the Chromium code and disabling stuff from the very first version of Vivaldi (we have some posts about this in our blog, such as https://vivaldi.com/blog/news/alert-no-google-topics-in-vivaldi/ or https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/).
We've also been very outspoken about our dislike of the built-in AI trend in the browser industry, but in case there's still any doubts: yes, we disable all Gemini-related features, and we've been doing it for a while.
@Vivaldi thank you for this.
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@Vivaldi I’d like to be able to hide the AI summary on Google’s search results page. This feature is very inaccurate and often gets things wrong. Plus, there’s no option to turn it off. It forces the summary onto users who don’t want it and wastes electricity.
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@Vivaldi will you consider making it optional rather than fully removing it? Like an opt-in feature?
I know Vivaldi is very friendly when it comes to user choice.
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@thibaultmol @Vivaldi I agree. That’s why I use Startpage.com as my default search engine, but sometimes I just have to use Google. Whenever that happens, this AI summary pops up, and it always gets on my nerves.

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@kimcrawley Quite literally, according to his profile text. ACAB...
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@kimcrawley Quite literally, according to his profile text. ACAB...
@dalias Well, DFIR for law enforcement is definitely suspicious work.
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@lazza @Vivaldi There's no way this stuff should be a first class (mis)feature in the browser, even optionally.
Put it in an optional extension like it always should have been, only present if you install it intentionally.
"Always installed but off by default" has no user assurance that it's actually off and not suddenly going to get turned on somehow.
-
By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
Our team has been inspecting the Chromium code and disabling stuff from the very first version of Vivaldi (we have some posts about this in our blog, such as https://vivaldi.com/blog/news/alert-no-google-topics-in-vivaldi/ or https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/).
We've also been very outspoken about our dislike of the built-in AI trend in the browser industry, but in case there's still any doubts: yes, we disable all Gemini-related features, and we've been doing it for a while.
@Vivaldi Thank you!
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@lazza @Vivaldi There's no way this stuff should be a first class (mis)feature in the browser, even optionally.
Put it in an optional extension like it always should have been, only present if you install it intentionally.
"Always installed but off by default" has no user assurance that it's actually off and not suddenly going to get turned on somehow.
@dalias @lazza @Vivaldi well, i think the reason it's in the browser itself is because a) these files are, as mentioned, massive, so you don't want to have each site store their own, and b) i don't know if the WebGPU APIs are there yet for doing LLM inference at comparable speed
i'm not opposed to the APIs in principle - LLM technology is simply not going away, and there are actually decent use cases for them, and I oppose the current status quo of just shipping it all to OpenAI or Anthropic's cloud server
My biggest concern is that no two LLM models will ever behave in the same way as each other, so sites & users that expect Google's Gemini model, wouldn't have the same experience as if say Safari had this with one of their on device models. And maybe by some pure miracle we could convince all the implementations to standardise on one model (not happening) - you can't ever update that model as newer ones are developed without breaking those expectations (also why the extension model wouldn't really work)
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B bogwitch@social.data.coop shared this topic
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@kimcrawley @lazza @Vivaldi Indeed, but my point was that if bad people want to make this shit, they can put it in something under their control that uses an existing interface boundary, rather than expecting us to accommodate their wish to put it in a special privileged place.
Yes, it should be illegal too.
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@dalias @lazza @Vivaldi well, i think the reason it's in the browser itself is because a) these files are, as mentioned, massive, so you don't want to have each site store their own, and b) i don't know if the WebGPU APIs are there yet for doing LLM inference at comparable speed
i'm not opposed to the APIs in principle - LLM technology is simply not going away, and there are actually decent use cases for them, and I oppose the current status quo of just shipping it all to OpenAI or Anthropic's cloud server
My biggest concern is that no two LLM models will ever behave in the same way as each other, so sites & users that expect Google's Gemini model, wouldn't have the same experience as if say Safari had this with one of their on device models. And maybe by some pure miracle we could convince all the implementations to standardise on one model (not happening) - you can't ever update that model as newer ones are developed without breaking those expectations (also why the extension model wouldn't really work)
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@lazza @Vivaldi There's no way this stuff should be a first class (mis)feature in the browser, even optionally.
Put it in an optional extension like it always should have been, only present if you install it intentionally.
"Always installed but off by default" has no user assurance that it's actually off and not suddenly going to get turned on somehow.
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@kimcrawley @lazza @Vivaldi Indeed, but my point was that if bad people want to make this shit, they can put it in something under their control that uses an existing interface boundary, rather than expecting us to accommodate their wish to put it in a special privileged place.
Yes, it should be illegal too.
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@lazza @Vivaldi Yes I do. And that does not help. Vivaldi or any respectable party should have absolutely no part in shipping/enabling this stuff.
If you want to install it, it should be a third-party extension provided by the slop provider, and subject to the same access controls all extensions are subject to.
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@dalias Well, DFIR for law enforcement is definitely suspicious work.
Your only arguments are insults so it gives a clear definition of yourself.
I work for private clients by the way, not for law enforcement. Maybe try to learn what the word "consultant" means.