As suggested by user ajgringo619 on askubuntu, disconnecting the home interface would get you close to what you're after. However to my knowledge there's no way to selectively connect certain folders in the home directory, such as ~/Downloads.
Note that if you disconnect the home interface, you will need to tell chromium where to store downloaded files, by configuring this in chrome://settings/downloads.
As suggested by user ajgringo619 on askubuntu, disconnecting the home interface would get you close to what you're after. However to my knowledge there's no way to selectively connect certain folders in the home directory, such as ~/Downloads.
Note that if you disconnect the home interface, you will need to tell chromium where to store downloaded files, by configuring this in chrome: //settings/ downloads.