Running Chromium without profile

[Eugene Ostroukhov]

We are writing developer tools that use Chrome as a runtime. "--user-
data-dir" command line switch is used to specify special profile but
it could be better if we could avoid profile it all - i.e. so the
Chrome start each time with a blank instance.
Sure, we could erase the profile after each user session - but if
there is some trick in Chrome to avoid profiles it would be much
easier :)

Best regards,
Eugene

[Munjal Doshi]

You can try using Incognito. But that is still not like using memory-only profile in a lot of cases. For example, if you bookmark from an Incognito window, that will be persisted to bookmarks file.

I think deleting user data dir at the start of every test, or using a different user data dir every time (for e.g. by using a GUID as its name) is easy enough and will fully guarantee you start with a clean state.

-Munjal

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[PhistucK]

You can take care of the bookmarks and history by using extensions (there is an experimental "history" extension API that will allow you to delete the browsing history). Also, you can control the cookies and local storage through the "Content Settings" dialog.

The cache\downloads\saved form values will be preserved (unless you choose not to save form values, but that can be changed through the "Options" dialog), though, unless you use Incognito mode.

Or, you can create a RAM drive and use it as the profile folder! All of its data will be erased upon shutdown. :)

☆PhistucK

[Robert Sesek]

You could pass the --incognito flag, which open a new incognito window
at launch (causing no session data to be persisted to disk past the
lifetime of the window). However, users could still open non-incognito
windows and cause data to be written to a profile.

[Eugene Ostroukhov]

To clear up my requirements.

We are developing IDE to do JS application development for Symbian
phones. So we use Chrome to run "emulator" with the JS application in
it.
Ideally we would need to:
1. Allow the users to launch several simultaneous sessions (I guess
now we will have to use separate profiles to ensure maximum isolation.
I don't like the solution with erasing profiles as I am not sure it
would be reliable (i.e. what if user pressed Ctrl+n to open a new
window and is reading GMail?).
2. We run our application as "app" - i.e. no address bar, no toolbar.
Can we block Ctrl+n?
3. Is there some way to open JS Inspector? We would really like to add
a button to "emulator" so user can click it and use Inspector
features.

Thank you for your help.

Best regards,
Eugene

[Eugene Ostroukhov]

Thank you for your help. I sent another message to the group o clarify
our requirements.

Best regards,
Eugene