But Chrome is not free (well kind of). It saves lot's of money in royalties for Google (because Google search is the default search engine in Chrome). So even if it's 'free' it saves money for Google.
so that you don't have to pay royalties to other browsers for being the main search engine.
I mean you have to pay one less. And if you have the most used browser, you save a lot.
In the good old days everyone and their grandmother just sideloaded their malware toolbars with freeware crap like picasa or maps or outright bundled their bloatware with the system like Google still does for Android.
Any links to read?