My router is my own, not ISP provided. I do have it configured to request DNS server from the ISP (current netgear software has a bug when attempting to set the DNS server internally, and I've had issues with just using google as my DNS provider). These settings handle the devices on my network that are not configured to use PiHole.
I do believe I see wpad.nyroc.rr.com when chrome itself is not open, but I don't attempt to fully shut it down, so there may be some background programs. Even so, I've been using chrome for years now, so if pihole is suddenly not working I don't believe that would be the cause.
I would have to watch the logs over a day or so to confirm all of your questions, because I do not know when I have my browser open and shut. My best guess to these questions based on what I'm pretty sure I remember (I would not say these answers are 100% accurate):
Do you see these requests even when your Chrome browser is not running?
- For wpad.nyroc.rr.com, yes. For the random string of characters, no.
Can you confirm observing these triple requests multiple times when running Chrome, even some time after starting up Chrome?
- Yes, they occur after starting chrome
Could there be something causing Chromium to restart repeatedly on your machine?
- Not that I know of. I do not believe anything is shutting it down.
Chromium (Chrome’s open source core engine) may be used as render enginge by non-browser programs as well, e.g. some mail clients will use Chromium to render HTML mails.
- Only mail clients are Outlook (rarely) and web-based gmail (most frequent)