Sorry but this is a weird post. Google did much more than self advertise. Its spread pattern was typical for what we've been calling malware. You could barely remove it. No, uninstaller did not clean house at all.
Not to mention Chrome was bundled into every random software installer, everything from MP3 players to torrent clients. You had to be vigilant, one misclick in a series of "next" buttons and congrats, you've got Chrome installed.
Paying to be a default search engine seems way more ethical in comparison.
Adobe Flash used to bundle Chrome. And Chrome used to bundle Flash. Average people just click [Next] reflexively without reading and a whole bunch of potentially unwanted software is installed.
Paying to be a default search engine seems way more ethical in comparison.