Reasonable thing to want a straight answer on. Stays on your machine, always: what you type, what the model answers, the model files, your conversations, and your documents. Does leave, and only this: signing in exchanges your account identity and which plan you're on. Update checks ask the website what the newest version is. Downloading a model fetches it from Hugging Face, as you'd expect. Not sent anywhere: your prompts, the model's output, your files, or details about your hardware. Once a model is downloaded, you can disconnect entirely and it keeps working — a fair way to verify the claim yourself. Written up here: https://lizard-llm.qendryx.com/faq.html

The honest answer: start with what setup recommends, then move up only if your machine looks bored. Rough guide by memory: RAM Sensible starting point 8 GB 1–3B model, Q4 16 GB 3–8B model, Q4 32 GB+ 8B and above, Q4–Q6 What the Q number means: compression. Q4 is roughly a quarter the size of the original with quality most people can't distinguish in normal use. Lower numbers are smaller and noticeably worse; higher are bigger and only marginally better. Q4 is the sweet spot and it's why it's the default. Bigger is not automatically better — a 3B model that fits comfortably will feel far better to use than an 8B one that makes your machine swap. What did setup suggest for you, and did you stick with it?

This section is for questions, including the ones that feel too simple to ask. "What does quantization mean?" is a perfectly good question and plenty of people want the answer. To get a useful reply quickly, it helps to include: What you're trying to do Your machine (CPU, GPU if any, RAM) The model you picked What actually happened, including the exact message if there was one If something failed, the message text matters more than a description of it — the wording usually points straight at the cause.