ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
NOTE: This page was first created July 7th, 2025.
July 27, 2025: For a Google search with no AI, go to udm14.com
July 19, 2025: For privacy and security, think twice before granting AI access to your personal data by Zack Whittaker for TechCrunch. AI tools often ask for "gross levels of access to your personal data" under the guise of needing it to work. This kind of access is not normal.
BROWSERS
- May 19, 2026: Blocking AI in Browsers
by Susan Bradley. Only applies to Windows and macOS.
- May 4, 2026: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. by Alexander Hanff for That Privacy Guy. Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB file for on-device AI use. It does not ask the user if they want this. The file is named weights.bin. It lives in folder OptGuideOnDeviceModel. It is the weights for Google's on-device LLM, Gemini Nano.
If you find the file and delete it, Chrome re-downloads it. The article does not say which operating systems this applies to. To prevent this, configure Chrome with:
1-Click the 3 vertical dots in the top right corner
2-Go to Settings, then on the left side bar go to System
3-The option is "On-device AI". Turn it OFF
4-Restart the Chrome browser
5-Manually delete the file
Initially Google promised that data from this local AI would not be sent to the Mother Ship. Then, they changed their mind. See Google quietly removes the on-device AI privacy assurance from Chrome's Settings UI by Alexander Hanff That Privacy Guy May 8, 2026.
CHATGPT
- Data Controls FAQ from OpenAI. Learn how to manage your ChatGPT data settings. As of September 17, 2025 this was last updated in June 2025.
- From the above: How do I stop my chats from training ChatGPT? From their website, Click your profile icon -> Select Settings -> Data Controls ->
Turn OFF the option to "Improve the model for everyone"
- There is also a "Temporary Chat" which keeps conversations out of
your chat history and does not affect what ChatGPT remembers about you. Despite this Temporary Chats are stored for up to 30 days.
- In October 2025 OpenAI introduced parental controls. Both the parent and child must have their own ChatGPT account. Parents:
Settings -> Parental Controls -> invite a family member
Parents can control: whether to allow their kids to hear AI voice responses, whether to allow ChatGPT to create images that kids request, whether to enable saved memories and hours that the kids can not use ChatGPT. These settings stay active until they are turned off.
DUCK DUCK GO
- July 2025: A version of the Duck Duck Go search engine without any AI is available at noai.duckduckgo.com
- July 2025: At duck.ai you can have free and private chats that are anonymized by
DuckDuckGo. Also, no AI training on your conversations. They offer five different AI models to chose from. According to this undated article from DDG, Are my recent chats private? Duck.ai can save up to 30 recent conversations, so you can refer to them later. These chats are stored locally on your device, not on any remote servers. You can also opt out of recent chats in the Duck.ai settings and you can delete the saved ones too. alternate link.
- September 5, 2025: How to use ChatGPT without giving up your data
by Shira Ovide for the Washington Post. The headline is a bit misleading, the article is about the DuckDuckGo AI chatbot. Quoting:
" ... when you use ChatGPT, Claude or Llama technology within DuckDuckGo's chatbot, the company acts as a middleman that limits what the AI companies
know about you and what you're chatting about. DuckDuckGo says that when you use its chatbot, your conversations aren't used to train AI for DuckDuckGo or any
of its partner AI companies . . . The catch is that DuckDuckGo's chatbot gateway hasn't given you access to the newest AI technologies. Right now, for example,
when you use ChatGPT’s technology within Duck.AI, you’re automatically using a year-old version of the AI. "
- Duck.ai Privacy Policy and Terms of Service from DuckDuckGo. As of September 18, 2025, the last update was September 10, 2025.
ANTHROPIC CLAUDE
- August 28, 2025: Updates to Consumer Terms and Privacy Policy from Anthropic.
They have changed from a default of not training on your data to a default of training with your data.
- To deal with the above, log into your account, click on the profile icon in the lower left corner, then Settings -> Privacy -> Review -> turn OFF the "You can help improve Claude" option.
PROTON LUMO
- July 2025: Lumo is a ChatGPT alternative from Proton. It does not log your chats and does not use them to train any AI models. The AI they use is a mix of open-source models and requests are processed on Proton servers. It can also process files such as PDFs and spreadsheets. Lumo is free (up to a point) and no account is needed. For more see: Proton's new Lumo AI is all about privacy by Jared Newman. July 23, 2025.
GOOGLE GEMINI
- March 2026: In the beginning, only paid Gemini users could have the AI pull their personal information from Gmail and Google Docs. Now, this will be available to all Gemini users. For more, see this Google blog: Bringing the power of Personal Intelligence to more people March 17, 2026. If you view this as a bad thing, it is configurable using Google's My Activity.
Change "Connected" to "Disconnect" for a bit more privacy.
- You can opt out of model training at My Activity.
For the "Your Gemini Apps Activity" chose to turn it OFF.
- July 7, 2025: Unless users take action, Android will let Gemini access third-party apps by Dan Goodin for Ars Technica. Quoting: "Starting today, Google is implementing a change that will enable its Gemini AI engine to interact with third-party apps, such as WhatsApp, even when users previously configured their devices to block such interactions. Users who don't want their previous settings to be overridden may have to take action."
- July 7, 2025: On July 7, Gemini AI will access your WhatsApp and more. Learn how to disable it on Android. by Lena of Tuta. Gemini AI needs to be disabled on Android or it will override your privacy settings and gain full access to your texts, calls, and WhatsApp - even if you’ve turned off Gemini Apps Activity. To disable it:
Settings -> Apps -> Disable Gemini app
FACEBOOK/META