Recently, many Windows users have found their C drive space mysteriously running out. After in-depth investigation by security experts, the culprit turned out to be the world's most widely used browser - Google Chrome. According to cnBeta, Chrome is accused of secretly downloading a 4GB Gemini Nano AI model file in the background without user authorization.

Security expert Zephyrianna revealed that Chrome quietly creates a large file named weight.bin in the system directory (C:\Users\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\OptGuide\OnDeviceModel). Technical analysis shows that this file is indeed the Gemini Nano model used by Google to support the browser's built-in AI features.

This "unscrupulous behavior" has sparked collective protests from developers and ordinary users. First, Google never asked for user consent during the entire download and operation process, which seriously violates users' right to be informed. Second, a 4GB file can cause disk overflow and may slow down system response speed due to the model loading in the background, especially for computers with limited SSD space or lower hardware configurations. More frustratingly, the file is set to read-only, and even if manually deleted, Chrome will stubbornly re-download it the next time it starts.

At present, Google has not made an official response to this issue. If you find your C drive space being consumed, you can try the following steps to manually clean it up:

  1. Enter chrome://flags/ in the Chrome address bar;

  2. Search and disable the two experimental options "Enables Optimization Guide On Device" and "Prompt API";

  3. After restarting the browser, go to the above path and manually delete the weight.bin file.