Permission denied when trying to load unpacked browser extension from folder with 755 permissions

[mjpelmear]

1) Ubuntu version
 Description: Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS
 Release: 20.04

2) chromium snap 103.0.5060.53

3) Expected result

When trying to load an "unpacked" browser extension for development, I should be able to click the "Load unpacked" button on the chrome://extensions/ view (in Developer mode) and select any folder for which I have access rights.

In particular, I'm trying to access a folder within my own home directory which has 755 permissions and root:root ownership. I have access to read this folder (and the files within it) as far as the operating system is concerned.

This always worked fine with the apt/deb packaging of Chromium until I updated to Ubuntu 20.04.4 (and thus the snap packaging) a few days ago. The extension would load as expected.

4) Actual result

When I try to load the extension from that folder in Chromium, I receive an error:

Could not read the contents of app
Error opening directory '/home/myuser/some/path/to/app': Permission denied

Regardless of whether or not I should have this strange scenario, chromium should not be deciding for me which files/folders I can or cannot access. I expect this permissions issue extends beyond only the loading of unpacked extensions.