Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google Inc.
Contents
Configuration
The Google Chrome configuration can be found in the Preferences file.
On Linux
/home/$USER/.config/google-chrome/Default/Preferences
On MacOS-X
/Users/$USER/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Preferences
On Windows XP
C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Preferences
On Windows Vista and later
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Preferences
Or for Chromium
On Linux
/home/$USER/.config/chromium/Default/Preferences
On MacOS-X
/Users/$USER/Library/Application Support/Chromium/Default/Preferences
On Windows XP
C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Local Settings\Application Data\Chromium\User Data\Default\Preferences
On Windows Vista and later
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Chromium\User Data\Default\Preferences
Plugins
Information about plugins can be found under the "plugins section" of the Preferences file.
DNS Prefetching
DNS is prefetched for related sites, e.g. links on the page. This behavior is controlled by the setting "Predict network actions to improve page load performance", which is enabled by default.
If enabled the Preferences file contains:
"dns_prefetching": {
"enabled": true,
If disabled the Preferences file contains:
"dns_prefetching": {
"enabled": false,
Start-up DNS queries
When Chrome starts it queries for several non-existing hostnames that consists of a 10 random characters, E.g.
ttrgoiknff.mydomain.com bxjhgftsyu.mydomain.com yokjbjiagd.mydomain.com
This is used to determine if your ISP is hijacking NXDOMAIN results [1].
Disk Cache
The Google Chrome disk cache can be found in:
On Linux
/home/$USER/.config/google-chrome/Default/Application Cache/Cache/
On MacOS-X
/Users/$USER/Caches/Google/Chrome/Default/Cache/
On Windows XP
C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Cache\
On Windows Vista and later
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache\
The Chrome Cache contains different files with the following file names:
- index
- data_#; where # contains a decimal digit.
- f_######; where # contains a hexadecimal digit.
For more info see Chrome developers site [2].
History
Chrome stores the history of visited sites in a file named History. This file uses the SQLite database format.
The History file can be found in same location as the Preferences file.
There is also Archived History that predates information in the History file. Note that the Archived History only contains visits.
Timestamps
The History file uses the different timestamps.
visits.visit_time
The visits.visit_time is in (the number of) microseconds since January 1, 1601 UTC
Some Python code to do the conversion into human readable format:
date_string = datetime.datetime( 1601, 1, 1 )
+ datetime.timedelta( microseconds=timestamp )
Note that this timestamp is not the same as a Windows filetime which is (the number of) 100 nanoseconds since January 1, 1601 UTC
downloads.start_time
The downloads.start_time is in (the number of) seconds since January 1, 1970 UTC
Some Python code to do the conversion into human readable format:
date_string = datetime.datetime( 1970, 1, 1 )
+ datetime.timedelta( seconds=timestamp )
Example queries
Some example queries:
To get an overview of the visited sites:
SELECT datetime(((visits.visit_time/1000000)-11644473600), "unixepoch"), urls.url, urls.title FROM urls, visits WHERE urls.id = visits.url;
Note that the visit_time conversion looses precision.
To get an overview of the downloaded files:
SELECT datetime(downloads.start_time, "unixepoch"), downloads.url, downloads.full_path, downloads.received_bytes, downloads.total_bytes FROM downloads;
How the information of the downloaded files is stored in the database can vary per version of Chrome as of version 26:
SELECT datetime(((downloads.start_time/1000000)-11644473600), "unixepoch"), downloads.target_path, downloads_url_chains.url, downloads.received_bytes, downloads.total_bytes \ FROM downloads, downloads_url_chains WHERE downloads.id = downloads_url_chains.id;
See Also
External Links
- Wikipedia article on Google Chrome
- The Chromium Projects - User Data Directory
- Chrome Disk Cache
- Chrome support forum article random 10 character hostnames on startup
- Chrome User Agent strings
- Google Chrome Forensics by Kristinn Guðjónsson, January 21, 2010
- Cashing in on the Google Chrome Cache, John Lehr, February 24, 2013
- History Index files removed from Chrome v30, by Ryan Benson, October 2, 2013
- Evolution of Chrome Databases, by Ryan Benson, November 12, 2013
