Google Reserved Private API in Chromium Browser for Exclusive System Info Access
TapTechNews July 11th news, developer Luca Casonato released a series of tweets on July 9th, indicating that Google has reserved a private API in the Chromium browser that allows exclusive access to detailed system information for Google-owned domains (such as *.google.com).
Chromium Introduction
Chromium is an open-source web browser project led by Google and is the basis for the Google Chrome browser. The goal of the Chromium project is to build a fast, stable, and safe web browser that provides advanced web technology support and a good user experience.
The private API for monitoring and debugging performance
These system information include CPU architecture data, as well as specific information such as the processor model and processor usage data. This private API does not appear in the Chrome browser extension panel and cannot be disabled by users, and the relevant code can be traced back to the content submitted in October 2013.
This feature allows Google services such as Google Meet to monitor system resources and provide performance suggestions, such as closing tab pages when the CPU is overloaded. This feature is achieved through a specific API call that can retrieve detailed processor information and system performance indicators.
Practical test
SimonWillison came up with a way to trigger the API (using GPT-4o) to show how this method works in practice:
However, when running this code snippet on a non-Google domain website, the feedback is that the specific call cannot be used. But when accessing any official Google website, the call will pass and generate a detailed response:
TapTechNews note: The relevant API can retrieve detailed information of the system CPU, including the architecture type, specific model, supported functions, the number of logical processors, and comprehensive usage statistics of each core. For example, it identifies the CPU architecture as x86_64 and lists functions such as MMX and various versions of SSE and AVX instruction sets. It can also show the CPU model. In addition, it also provides detailed usage indicators for each core, including idle time, time used by the kernel and user processes, and total active time.