Google Lets Chrome Users Opt Out of Background AI Security Models

Google is giving Chrome users a way to pull back on the AI features running inside their browser. A new setting has appeared that lets you turn off the built-in AI models used to catch scams and fake websites. This was first spotted in Canary, Chrome's experimental testing version, but it should hit the regular browser soon.

For a long time, Chrome has offered a setting called "Enhanced Protection" to keep you safe from bad websites and shady downloads. Last year, Google made this feature smarter by adding AI that lives right on your computer. Instead of just checking a list of "bad" sites provided by Google, this AI watches how a website behaves the second you open it. This helps it catch brand-new scams that haven’t been reported yet.

Since the AI lives right on your laptop or phone, it can check out a website the moment you land on it. It hunts for warning signs, like a page trying to trick you into downloading something nasty or fishing for your passwords. It used to be that Chrome just checked a big list of "blocked" sites to see if there was a match. Now, the browser is much more active, acting like a digital guard that makes its own calls on whether a site looks fishy before you even click anything.

Even though this AI is meant to help, it does use up some of your computer’s memory and power. Some users also just prefer not to have AI scanning their activity locally. Google is now making it easy to opt out. If you go into your browser settings and look under the system section, you will find a simple toggle to turn off "On-device AI models." Flipping this switch removes the models from your device and goes back to the standard way of handling security.

This update isn't just about security. Chrome is starting to use these local AI models for all sorts of things, like helping you write emails or organising your messy browser tabs. By giving users a way to turn off the fraud-detection AI, Google is creating a roadmap for how we will manage all these new smart features in the future. You can expect to see this setting show up in the regular version of Chrome very soon.