Associate a custom user agent to a specific Google Chrome page/tab
I'm developing a Google Chrome extension and I'd like to set up a specific user agent to a tab/page, or to a popup (iframe shown as a "bubble popup"), without affecting other pages or tabs.
Is it possible?
Solution 1:
The webRequest
API can be used to modify the User Agent header.
Note: The Network tab at the Developer tools show the old headers. I've verified that the headers are set correctly, using netcat (nc -l 127.0.0.1 -p 6789
).
In the example below, the code activates on all tabs. Adjust the request filter to meet your requirements. Add tabId
to limit the functionality to this filter, with the tabId of your tabs (obtainable through various APIs, chrome.tabs
in particular).
background.js
chrome.webRequest.onBeforeSendHeaders.addListener(
function(info) {
// Replace the User-Agent header
var headers = info.requestHeaders;
headers.forEach(function(header, i) {
if (header.name.toLowerCase() == 'user-agent') {
header.value = 'Spoofed UA';
}
});
return {requestHeaders: headers};
},
// Request filter
{
// Modify the headers for these pages
urls: [
"http://stackoverflow.com/*",
"http://127.0.0.1:6789/*"
],
// In the main window and frames
types: ["main_frame", "sub_frame"]
},
["blocking", "requestHeaders"]
);
manifest.json
{
"name": "WebRequest UA test",
"version": "1.0",
"permissions": ["webRequest", "webRequestBlocking", "http://*/*"],
"background": {
"scripts": ["background.js"]
},
"manifest_version": 2
}
Documentation
-
chrome.webRequest.onbeforeSendHeaders
event - The Request filter