I don't use Chrome on Android but a bit of googling reveals that they have recently enabled link preview by default.

I didn't see how this might br related to your magnifier problem, but I found a comment from 2017 about link preview as it was back then:
Enable link preview: Magnify links when it’s unclear which link you pressed.
So I think they're connected. But that article suggests that to activate link preview you have to long-press, so maybe not.

What I do if links are very small and close together (I use use Firefox on Android) is reverse-pinch them apart.