Ubuntu is providing more and more software, including chrome, as snap packages. As a result I may actually end up moving away from ubuntu / xubuntu after many years as a happy user, but that is an other story. For the time being, here is an alternative way to install the non-snap deb package:

First make sure that the snap version of chrome is completely removed if it had already been installed in the past. I also removed snapd itself. Then download and install the deb version:

wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

A different approach that uses Debian repos is described here.