[brightshiny]

I have all those boxes unticked, and yet Little Snitch shows me it still keeps trying to connect to Google's servers, around every 15 minutes and on start up at the very least. I asked it not to store passwords too, and it still pops up the password box to access my keychain.

You're putting too much faith in them.

[Karunamon]

Apps need access to the system keychain to do things other than store passwords, (accessing certificates for authorization is a common one), and those connections sound like the automated update checks based on their behavior. (Which I don't think you can disable- but why the hell would you?)

If you want to test that, temporarily disable the little snitch rule and keep an eye on the top right hamburger menu - it'll turn green or orange if updates are pending.

It sounds like you've decided to treat Chrome as a hostile app and are going to evaluate everything it does negatively in that light. If that's the case, why not just uninstall it?

[brightshiny]

It's not asking for access to the system keychain. No, those aren't the automated update checks because I already dealt with those. Yes, I'm treating it like a hostile app - it's an app I didn't write, has recent history of sneaking in sneaky things, ignores the settings I've chosen, and repeatedly phones home even though I've disabled every single available setting that would need to do anything other than get me the webpage I ask for. My evaluation is based on those reasons alone, not your straw man.

It has a better version of Flash, that's the only reason I keep it around.

You really don't know why anyone would turn of automatic updates? Really?

[JupiterMoon]

Surely you'd be better just using another browser if you don't trust Chrome?