If you're just trying to get to the location bar without activating the default search, can't you just press ctrl+l, alt+d, or F6?

OK did not know about that.

Yes, ctrl-e/ctrl-k mean "search with DSP", which is why the "Search Google" (or similar) text appears in that case.

ctrl-l/alt-d/f6 mean "focus location bar".

The particular shortcut control-e is meant to direct searches to your default search provider.  There are other shortcuts such as control-l that allow general omnibox use.  This is working as intended.

OK.  In previous version ctrl+e goes to the omnibar.

Yes, it did, and still does.

And its behavior (forcing a search) has not changed either.  That's been true since Chrome's inception.  The presentation recently became clearer as we began using the standard "search engine selected" UI rather than prefixing with a cryptic '?' character.

Then how about if you type the short code to other search engines it will move on to that search engine.

That's what ctrl-l is for.

Doing what you request would make it literally impossible to search for any string that's a search engine keyword.  And there's no reason not to use ctrl-l here.

 Issue 648732  has been merged into this issue.

Well pressing "tab" will confirm a switch if not it will keep searching