Google Gemini Nano is now automatically enabled on all Chromium-based browsers; you didn't have a say in this. So, below is a guide on how to disable it if you don't want it.
If you've ever gone digging around through your Chrome data directory ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome on macOS or ~/.config/google-chrome on Linux and stumbled on a directory called OptGuideOnDeviceClassifierModel, you're not alone in wondering what the hell it is.
It's Chrome downloading machine learning model weights to your machine so it can do on-device content classification. The weights.bin file inside can get surprisingly large, and Chrome will just keep re-downloading it whenever it wants.
Here's how to deal with it and save the world lol.
Option 1: Nuke it and block Chrome from coming back
Open Terminal and run:
# macOS rm -rf "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceClassifierModel" # Linux rm -rf "$HOME/.config/google-chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceClassifierModel"
Then immediately drop a file in its place:
# macOS touch "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceClassifierModel" # Linux touch "$HOME/.config/google-chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceClassifierModel"
What this does is replace the folder with a plain file that has the same name. When Chrome tries to recreate the directory, it hits a "not a directory" error and gives up. Janky? A little. Effective? Yes.
Option 2: Turn it off in Chrome flags
This is the cleaner fix. Go to chrome://flags in your address bar and search for "1". Disable anything related to on-device models and relaunch. Chrome just stops trying to use the feature entirely.
Option 3: Lock It Down With Permissions
If you'd rather keep the folder but make it unreadable/unwritable:
# macOS chmod 000 "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceClassifierModel" # Linux chmod 000 "$HOME/.config/google-chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceClassifierModel"
That strips all permissions. Chrome can't read it, write to it, or touch it. To reverse it later:
# macOS chmod 755 "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceClassifierModel" # Linux chmod 755 "$HOME/.config/google-chrome/OptGuideOnDeviceClassifierModel"
On Linux, if you're running Chromium instead of Chrome, swap google-chrome for chromium or chromium-browser depending on your distro.
What I'd Actually Do
Disable it via Chrome flags first; that stops Chrome from even trying to fetch new model versions. Then if you want to be thorough, chmod 000 the folder as a backup. That way you're covered at both the application level and the filesystem level.
It's a minor annoyance, but these background ML downloads are the kind of thing that quietly pile up on your disk without you ever opting in. Worth cleaning up.
War and Peas