When Google Chrome was new it was advertised a ton of places. All sorts of applications and plugins would by default install Chrome at the same time unless you opted out.
Not that that makes this any less bad, but it seems the more fair comparison.
I had totally forgotten about a Chrome download being sneaked into applications. It used a number of dark patterns like having the "install chrome" tickbox being light grey on top of white or it being hidden in "customise install" options.
Was commonplace for a while. Oracle even installed the Ask browser toolbar when you installed their database, with the same easy-to-miss opt-out checkbox. Pretty crazy.
Yes it was really annoying. I was using one of the Chromium forks and Chrome used to sneak onto the machine unless you vigilante. It felt like the bad old days of shareware and bonzi-buddy had returned.
Not that that makes this any less bad, but it seems the more fair comparison.