CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptgoogle-chromegoogle-chrome-extension
Akash R
Akash R

Reputation: 183

Chrome Extension: How to get user name?

I'm creating a Google chrome extension. For some functionality, I need user's system login name (no password). By using JavaScript, it is not possible to do so.

Some suggest NPAPI, but I have no idea about it, so I quit.

Next thing I'm trying to get user name in Chrome Browser. But still no success.

I try to use some thing like:

var currentUser; 
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); 
xhr.onreadystatechange = function(data) { 
  if (xhr.readyState == 1) { 
    currentUser = null; 
    if (xhr.status == 200) 
    {
      var re = new RegExp(/<b class="?gb4"?>[\s]*([^<]+@[^<]+)      <\/b>/i); 
      var m = re.exec(xhr.responseText); 
      if (m && m.length == 2) { 
        currentUser = m[1]; 
      } 
    } 
    console.log("Currently logged user (on google.com): " +   currentUser); 
  } 
}; 
xhr.open('GET', ' https://myaccount.google.com/?pli=1', false); 
xhr.send(); `

still no success.

My whole agenda is to get user name (either desktop login name or Chrome login name), and I'm not able to get it.

I need to send this username as parameter to my service, as user name works as primary key.

Upvotes: 12

Views: 30046

Answers (2)

Shubham Aggarwal
Shubham Aggarwal

Reputation: 363

Chrome.identity has a method getProfileUserInfo but it gives out the details of only primary user.

There is an alternative:

When you open chrome, you launch onto the home screen and you should be able to see a circle on the top right corner which shows image of logged in user. You can access that using DOM. Once you do that you will be able to get information about all the logged in users.

Upvotes: 0

Xan
Xan

Reputation: 77523

First off, you say that you need this login information to identify a user, using it as a primary key.

That automatically disqualifies system login names: they are not unique.

Now, let's get back to logged-in Chrome user. Google Account is reasonably unique.

There are two approaches to take here.

  1. Chrome's chrome.identity API can provide both the email and, maybe better for your purposes, a unique ID for the account.

    You will need "identity" and "identity.email" permissions. Then:

    chrome.identity.getProfileUserInfo(function(userInfo) {
 /* Use userInfo.email, or better (for privacy) userInfo.id
    They will be empty if user is not signed in in Chrome */
});

  2. An alternative approach is to use Google's OAuth on your service. Again, see the chrome.identity documentation.

Upvotes: 26

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