If we are meant to believe that this is a Chrome-invasion-move, it's the least effective lever of all times. Most of the time the more plausible explanations are just the likely ones.
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.
I mean, they claimed to be for browser diversity when it was not them on top lol. Underdogs want the race to tighten up, 85% market leaders want to stay out in front.
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.