Welcome to 2026, in which a browser is an operating system!

> I wanted/consented to a browser. Nothing more.

I agree. I want just a browser. No non-browser-related features, such as JavaScript, CSS, WebRTC, WebGPU, Wasm, etc. Nope, just browsing.

Edit: /s, obviously

> nothing new with the browser vendor pushing plugins down our throat which are not browser core features

You need to find another browser, if your desire is only browser core features. You have that freedom!! You can do it!

On the other hand: I don't think anyone caters to that position, because it's a bad/nonsense position, that users don't want. There are some browsers that come closer to this, but this idea of "browser core features" is, on the face of it, to me, reduction deeply into the absurd.

It’s actually really useful for web devs to have access to a local model. Whether or not browsers should bundle their own rather than using the system-provided model(s) is up for debate, however. For the time being, though, Google does have some of the better small ones.

Furthermore, users aren’t going to want to have to wait for an extra thing to download before their web apps can use AI.

That’s the thing… Without context of why, users probably wouldn’t want a 4 GB download. But they do want their web apps to work properly. When there’s a specific use case they’re interested in, they will want to have it, and they won’t want to wait.