Darren

I've tried a couple of exclusions, the binary and also the ~/.config/google-chrome folder (which wouldn't be a permanent solution) but neither seemed to help.

I have the same issue, the companies mandated Nod32 installed and Chrome 79 crashes within a few minutes of startup. Chromium did work, until it updated yesterday from 78 to 79, but I've downgraded Chromium to 78 to continue working.