you’d probably say something different if it were microsoft.

I don’t see why I should give affordances of good will to Google here.

They’re not stupid, they know that this is an effective lever to further cement full-fat chrome as the default browser for the internet.

Chrome was created because Google felt that the IE monopoly was hindering the advancement of web standards and improved browser capabilities. I suppose you could argue that was a different Google at a different time, but at one point they did feel that browser diversity was a good thing.