I'm not sure how that (random) post shows it connects "just as frequently", but I just tried it with a new install of chromium. I picked bing as my default sear

I'm not sure how that (random) post shows it connects "just as frequently", but I just tried it with a new install of chromium. I picked bing as my default search engine and got no connections to a google server on startup. In normal use, I think you will have to disable "use a web service to help resolve navigation errors" and "enable phishing and malware protection" to prevent all connections, but I'm personally ok with those (and find them sufficiently well documented)