chrome.privacy

Description

Use the chrome.privacy API to control usage of the features in Chrome that can affect a user's privacy. This API relies on the ChromeSetting prototype of the type API for getting and setting Chrome's configuration.

Permissions

privacy

Manifest

You must declare the "privacy" permission in your extension's manifest to use the API. For example:

{
  "name": "My extension",
  ...
  "permissions": [
    "privacy"
  ],
  ...
}

Usage

Reading the current value of a Chrome setting is straightforward. You'll first need to find the property you're interested in, then you'll call get() on that object in order to retrieve its current value and your extension's level of control. For example, to determine if Chrome's Autofill feature is enabled, you'd write:

chrome.privacy.services.autofillEnabled.get({}, function(details) {
  if (details.value) {
    console.log('Autofill is on!');
  } else {
    console.log('Autofill is off!');
  }
});

Changing the value of a setting is a little bit more complex, simply because you first must verify that your extension can control the setting. The user won't see any change to their settings if your extension toggles a setting that is either locked to a specific value by enterprise policies (levelOfControl will be set to "not_controllable"), or if another extension is controlling the value (levelOfControl will be set to "controlled_by_other_extensions"). The set() call will succeed, but the setting will be immediately overridden. As this might be confusing, it is advisable to warn the user when the settings they've chosen aren't practically applied.

This means that you ought to use the get() method to determine your level of access, and then only call set() if your extension can grab control over the setting (in fact if your extension can't control the setting it's probably a good idea to visually disable the functionality to reduce user confusion):

chrome.privacy.services.autofillEnabled.get({}, function(details) {
  if (details.levelOfControl === 'controllable_by_this_extension') {
    chrome.privacy.services.autofillEnabled.set({ value: true }, function() {
      if (chrome.runtime.lastError === undefined) {
        console.log("Hooray, it worked!");
      } else {
        console.log("Sadness!", chrome.runtime.lastError);
      }
    });
  }
});

If you're interested in changes to a setting's value, add a listener to its onChange event. Among other uses, this will allow you to warn the user if a more recently installed extension grabs control of a setting, or if enterprise policy overrides your control. To listen for changes to Autofill's status, for example, the following code would suffice:

chrome.privacy.services.autofillEnabled.onChange.addListener(
  function (details) {
    // The new value is stored in `details.value`, the new level of control
    // in `details.levelOfControl`, and `details.incognitoSpecific` will be
    // `true` if the value is specific to Incognito mode.
  }
);

Examples

To try this API, install the privacy API example from the chrome-extension-samples repository.

Types

IPHandlingPolicy

Chrome 48+

The IP handling policy of WebRTC.

Enum

"default"

"default_public_and_private_interfaces"

"default_public_interface_only"

"disable_non_proxied_udp"

Properties

network

Settings that influence Chrome's handling of network connections in general.

Type

object

Properties

  • networkPredictionEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    If enabled, Chrome attempts to speed up your web browsing experience by pre-resolving DNS entries and preemptively opening TCP and SSL connections to servers. This preference only affects actions taken by Chrome's internal prediction service. It does not affect webpage-initiated prefectches or preconnects. This preference's value is a boolean, defaulting to true.

  • webRTCIPHandlingPolicy

    types.ChromeSetting<IPHandlingPolicy>

    Chrome 48+

    Allow users to specify the media performance/privacy tradeoffs which impacts how WebRTC traffic will be routed and how much local address information is exposed. This preference's value is of type IPHandlingPolicy, defaulting to default.

services

Settings that enable or disable features that require third-party network services provided by Google and your default search provider.

Type

object

Properties

  • alternateErrorPagesEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    If enabled, Chrome uses a web service to help resolve navigation errors. This preference's value is a boolean, defaulting to true.

  • autofillAddressEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    Chrome 70+

    If enabled, Chrome offers to automatically fill in addresses and other form data. This preference's value is a boolean, defaulting to true.

  • autofillCreditCardEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    Chrome 70+

    If enabled, Chrome offers to automatically fill in credit card forms. This preference's value is a boolean, defaulting to true.

  • autofillEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    Deprecated since Chrome 70

    Please use privacy.services.autofillAddressEnabled and privacy.services.autofillCreditCardEnabled. This remains for backward compatibility in this release and will be removed in the future.

    If enabled, Chrome offers to automatically fill in forms. This preference's value is a boolean, defaulting to true.

  • passwordSavingEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    If enabled, the password manager will ask if you want to save passwords. This preference's value is a boolean, defaulting to true.

  • safeBrowsingEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    If enabled, Chrome does its best to protect you from phishing and malware. This preference's value is a boolean, defaulting to true.

  • safeBrowsingExtendedReportingEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    If enabled, Chrome will send additional information to Google when SafeBrowsing blocks a page, such as the content of the blocked page. This preference's value is a boolean, defaulting to false.

  • searchSuggestEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    If enabled, Chrome sends the text you type into the Omnibox to your default search engine, which provides predictions of websites and searches that are likely completions of what you've typed so far. This preference's value is a boolean, defaulting to true.

  • spellingServiceEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    If enabled, Chrome uses a web service to help correct spelling errors. This preference's value is a boolean, defaulting to false.

  • translationServiceEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    If enabled, Chrome offers to translate pages that aren't in a language you read. This preference's value is a boolean, defaulting to true.

websites

Settings that determine what information Chrome makes available to websites.

Type

object

Properties

  • adMeasurementEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    Chrome 111+

    If disabled, the Attribution Reporting API and Private Aggregation API are deactivated. The value of this preference is of type boolean, and the default value is true. Extensions may only disable these APIs by setting the value to false. If you try setting these APIs to true, it will throw an error.

  • doNotTrackEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    Chrome 65+

    If enabled, Chrome sends 'Do Not Track' (DNT: 1) header with your requests. The value of this preference is of type boolean, and the default value is false.

  • fledgeEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    Chrome 111+

    If disabled, the Fledge API is deactivated. The value of this preference is of type boolean, and the default value is true. Extensions may only disable this API by setting the value to false. If you try setting this API to true, it will throw an error.

  • hyperlinkAuditingEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    If enabled, Chrome sends auditing pings when requested by a website (<a ping>). The value of this preference is of type boolean, and the default value is true.

  • protectedContentEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    Available on Windows and ChromeOS only: If enabled, Chrome provides a unique ID to plugins in order to run protected content. The value of this preference is of type boolean, and the default value is true.

  • referrersEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    If enabled, Chrome sends referer headers with your requests. Yes, the name of this preference doesn't match the misspelled header. No, we're not going to change it. The value of this preference is of type boolean, and the default value is true.

  • relatedWebsiteSetsEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    Chrome 121+

    If disabled, Related Website Sets is deactivated. The value of this preference is of type boolean, and the default value is true. Extensions may only disable this API by setting the value to false. If you try setting this API to true, it will throw an error.

  • thirdPartyCookiesAllowed

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    If disabled, Chrome blocks third-party sites from setting cookies. The value of this preference is of type boolean, and the default value is true.

  • topicsEnabled

    types.ChromeSetting<boolean>

    Chrome 111+

    If disabled, the Topics API is deactivated. The value of this preference is of type boolean, and the default value is true. Extensions may only disable this API by setting the value to false. If you try setting this API to true, it will throw an error.