Remember, in ~2010, it was a trend to add toolbars to Internet Explorer (it was called BHO I think?)
These toolbars were changing the search engine for Bing, Yahoo, etc. This is why they were called "Yahoo toolbar".
But then, came Chrome, which was bundled among other in:
- Adobe Flash Player updates
- Java Runtime Environment (via Oracle)
- CCleaner
- Avast and AVG installers
- Many download portals (e.g., Softonic, CNET Download.com, SourceForge)
So, the objective of Chrome, instead of replacing the search engine with a toolbar, it was to do it by installing a new app, but this is exactly the same goal. At the end, the goal of Google was not the save the web, it was to replace the search engine and display ads on these pages (+ make sure that the targeting + rendering is under their control).