"Silently installs" is misleading. They are including a file in the package which is presumably related to the functionality of the software. I don't use chrome for a long list of reasons but it is not standard or expected to get consent for that.

“Silent” seems appropriate given it historically never required such a large storage requirement and the nature of the new feature seems entirely optional; and it’s happening silently as part of a normal upgrade.

There is, however, precedent for software alerting/asking the user to install “extras” or utility packs and showing the disk size that content will take up and even allowing the user to choose a location to store such things. Creative software does this all the time.

There’s nothing stopping Google Chrome from doing something similar except, I suspect, Google knows or feels it will result in many fewer installs of its bloatware.

Then what is your definition of "installing" exactly? Are you going to split hairs about it not being a separate program being installed and running in the background, but weights being used by code that is run inside the browser? Because honestly, I don't think there's any significant difference from the user's perspective here. Other than the fact that doing the latter bypasses the need to get permission to install a new program. Which makes it an even worse violation, in a way, since it undermines the trust that the browser as a platform is just a browser.

A 4 GiB model has nothing to do with the functionality of a web browser. It is something forced on users without their consent.

Of course that's what we get for giving the benefit of doubt to the company that insisted on learning the wrong things from the Google Buzz fiasco.

Look at how many headlines indicated that something is silently happening. It's a weird trend at the moment.

This feels deliberately reductive