Programmatically access the Google Chrome Home or Start page

Default locations are:

Windows XP

Google Chrome: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
Chromium: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Chromium\User Data\Default

Vista / 7

Google Chrome: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
Chromium: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Chromium\User Data\Default

Mac OS X

Google Chrome: ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default
Chromium: ~/Library/Application Support/Chromium/Default

Linux

Google Chrome: ~/.config/google-chrome/Default
Chromium: ~/.config/chromium/Default

Source: Google Chromium user data directory default locations. ( link )

In amount of time I spent on writing this, this was the shortest and most robust example I could think of (I completely ignored the fact, that user could use different location then default). Must say, it was bit trickier, then I thought.

In this example, I try using the default location directory, and finding the preference file where the “Home” is stored. It is stored in JSon format, so I deserialize the data that I am interested, and print it out.

Win 7 Example:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.IO;
//References -> Add Reference -> "System.Runtime.Serialization" Add
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.Runtime.Serialization.Json;

namespace test {
    class Program {
        [DataContract]
        public class Mdata {
            [DataMember(Name = "homepage")] 
            public String homepage { get; private set; }
            [DataMember(Name = "homepage_is_newtabpage")]
            public Boolean isNewTab { get; private set; }
            public Mdata() { }
            public Mdata(String data) {
                homepage = data;
            }
        }

        public static Mdata FindData(String json) {
            Mdata deserializedData = new Mdata();
            MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(json));
            DataContractJsonSerializer ser = new DataContractJsonSerializer(deserializedData.GetType());
            deserializedData = ser.ReadObject(ms) as Mdata;
            ms.Close();
            return deserializedData;
        }

        static void Main(string[] args) {
            const int LikeWin7 = 6;
            OperatingSystem osInfo = Environment.OSVersion;
            DirectoryInfo strDirectory;
            String path=null, file=null, data;

            if (osInfo.Platform.Equals(System.PlatformID.Win32NT))
                if (osInfo.Version.Major == LikeWin7)
                    path = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("LocalAppData") +
                        @"\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default";
            if (path == null || path.Length == 0)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("Fail. Bad OS.");
            if (!(strDirectory = new DirectoryInfo(path)).Exists)
                throw new DirectoryNotFoundException("Fail. The directory was not fund");
            if (!new FileInfo(file = Directory.GetFiles(strDirectory.FullName, "Preferences*")[0]).Exists)
                throw new FileNotFoundException("Fail. The file was not found.", file);

            Mdata info = FindData(data = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(file));
            Console.WriteLine(info.homepage);
            Console.WriteLine(info.isNewTab);
        }
    }
}

Example output for Me:

chrome://newtab
True

Hope I get at least 1 up vote 😛