webRequest.onBeforeRequest

This event is triggered when a request is about to be made, and before headers are available. This is a good place to listen if you want to cancel or redirect the request.

To cancel or redirect the request, first include "blocking" in the extraInfoSpec array argument to addListener(). Then, in the listener function, return a BlockingResponse object, setting the appropriate property:

• to cancel the request, include a property cancel with the value true.
• to redirect the request, include a property redirectUrl with the value set to the URL to which you want to redirect.

If an extension wants to redirect a public (e.g. HTTPS) URL to an extension page, the extension's manifest.json file must contain a web_accessible_resources key that lists the URL for the extension page.

When multiple blocking handlers modify a request, only one set of modifications take effect. Redirects and cancellations have the same precedence. So if you canceled a request, you might see another request with the same requestId again if another blocking handler redirected the request.

From Firefox 52 onwards, instead of returning BlockingResponse, the listener can return a Promise which is resolved with a BlockingResponse. This enables the listener to process the request asynchronously.

If you use "blocking", you must have the "webRequestBlocking" API permission in your manifest.json.

Syntax

browser.webRequest.onBeforeRequest.addListener(
  listener,             // function
  filter,               //  object
  extraInfoSpec         //  optional array of strings
)
browser.webRequest.onBeforeRequest.removeListener(listener)
browser.webRequest.onBeforeRequest.hasListener(listener)

Events have three functions:

addListener(callback, filter, extraInfoSpec)

Adds a listener to this event.

removeListener(listener)

Stop listening to this event. The listener argument is the listener to remove.

hasListener(listener)

Check whether listener is registered for this event. Returns true if it is listening, false otherwise.

addListener syntax

Parameters

callback

Function that will be called when this event occurs. The function will be passed the following arguments:

details

object. Details about the request. See details below.

Returns: webRequest.BlockingResponse. If "blocking" is specified in the extraInfoSpec parameter, the event listener should return a BlockingResponse object, and can set either its cancel or its redirectUrl properties. From Firefox 52 onwards, instead of returning BlockingResponse, the listener can return a Promise which is resolved with a BlockingResponse. This enables the listener to process the request asynchronously.

filter

webRequest.RequestFilter. A filter that restricts the events that will be sent to this listener.

extraInfoSpecOptional

array of string. Extra options for the event. You can pass any of the following values:

• "blocking": make the request synchronous, so you can cancel or redirect the request
• "requestBody": include requestBody in the details object passed to the listener

Additional objects

details

cookieStoreId

string. If the request is from a tab open in a contextual identity, the cookie store ID of the contextual identity.

documentUrl

string. URL of the document in which the resource will be loaded. For example, if the web page at "https://example.com" contains an image or an iframe, then the documentUrl for the image or iframe will be "https://example.com". For a top-level document, documentUrl is undefined.

frameAncestors

array. Contains information for each document in the frame hierarchy up to the top-level document. The first element in the array contains information about the immediate parent of the document being requested, and the last element contains information about the top-level document. If the load is actually for the top-level document, then this array is empty.

url

string. The URL that the document was loaded from.

frameId

integer. The frameId of the document. details.frameAncestors[0].frameId is the same as details.parentFrameId.

frameId

integer. Zero if the request happens in the main frame; a positive value is the ID of a subframe in which the request happens. If the document of a (sub-)frame is loaded (type is main_frame or sub_frame), frameId indicates the ID of this frame, not the ID of the outer frame. Frame IDs are unique within a tab.

incognito

boolean. Whether the request is from a private browsing window.

method

string. Standard HTTP method: for example, "GET" or "POST".

originUrl

string. URL of the resource which triggered the request. For example, if "https://example.com" contains a link, and the user clicks the link, then the originUrl for the resulting request is "https://example.com".

The originUrl is often but not always the same as the documentUrl. For example, if a page contains an iframe, and the iframe contains a link that loads a new document into the iframe, then the documentUrl for the resulting request will be the iframe's parent document, but the originUrl will be the URL of the document in the iframe that contained the link.

parentFrameId

integer. ID of the frame that contains the frame which sent the request. Set to -1 if no parent frame exists.

proxyInfo

object. This property is present only if the request is being proxied. It contains the following properties:

host

string. The hostname of the proxy server.

port

integer. The port number of the proxy server.

type

string. The type of proxy server. One of:

• "http": HTTP proxy (or SSL CONNECT for HTTPS)
• "https": HTTP proxying over TLS connection to proxy
• "socks": SOCKS v5 proxy
• "socks4": SOCKS v4 proxy
• "direct": no proxy
• "unknown": unknown proxy

username

string. Username for the proxy service.

proxyDNS

boolean. True if the proxy will perform domain name resolution based on the hostname supplied, meaning that the client should not do its own DNS lookup.

failoverTimeout

integer. Failover timeout in seconds. If the proxy connection fails, the proxy will not be used again for this period.

requestBodyOptional

object. Contains the HTTP request body data. Only provided if extraInfoSpec contains "requestBody".

errorOptional

string. This is set if any errors were encountered when obtaining request body data.

formDataOptional

object. This object is present if the request method is POST and the body is a sequence of key-value pairs encoded in UTF-8 as either "multipart/form-data" or "application/x-www-form-urlencoded".

It is a dictionary in which each key contains the list of all values for that key. For example: {'key': ['value1', 'value2']}. If the data is of another media type, or if it is malformed, the object is not present.

rawOptional

array of webRequest.UploadData. If the request method is PUT or POST, and the body is not already parsed in formData, then this array contains the unparsed request body elements.

requestId

string. The ID of the request. Request IDs are unique within a browser session, so you can use them to relate different events associated with the same request.

tabId

integer. ID of the tab in which the request takes place. Set to -1 if the request isn't related to a tab.

thirdParty

boolean. Indicates whether the request and its content window hierarchy are third party.

timeStamp

number. The time when this event fired, in milliseconds since the epoch.

type

webRequest.ResourceType. The type of resource being requested: for example, "image", "script", "stylesheet".

url

string. Target of the request.

urlClassification

object. The type of tracking associated with the request, if with the request has been classified by Firefox Tracking Protection. This is an object with the following properties:

firstParty

array of strings. Classification flags for the request's first party.

thirdParty

array of strings. Classification flags for the request or its window hierarchy's third parties.

The classification flags include:

• fingerprinting and fingerprinting_content: indicates the request is involved in fingerprinting. fingerprinting_content indicates the request is loaded from an origin that has been found to fingerprint but is not considered to participate in tracking, such as a payment provider.
• cryptomining and cryptomining_content: similar to the fingerprinting category but for cryptomining resources.
• tracking, tracking_ad, tracking_analytics, tracking_social, and tracking_content: indicates the request is involved in tracking. tracking is any generic tracking request, the ad, analytics, social, and content suffixes identify the type of tracker.
• any_basic_tracking: a meta flag that combines any tracking and fingerprinting flags, excluding tracking_content and fingerprinting_content.
• any_strict_tracking: a meta flag that combines any tracking and fingerprinting flags, including tracking_content and fingerprinting_content.
• any_social_tracking: a meta flag that combines any social tracking flags.

Browser compatibility

DNS resolution ordering when BlockingResponse is used

Regarding DNS resolution when BlockingResponse is used with OnBeforeRequest: In HTTP Channel, onBeforeRequest with blocking response does happen prior to DNS resolution and also prior to speculative connect. For other channels, speculative connect may cause DNS requests to happen before onBeforeRequest. This ordering is not something an extension developer ought to rely on as it may vary across browsers, and from one browser version to another, let alone one request channel to another. Refer BugZilla issue clarification provided by Mozilla developers on DNS resolution ordering

Examples

This code logs the URL for every resource requested which matches the <all_urls> pattern:

function logURL(requestDetails) {
  console.log("Loading: " + requestDetails.url);
}

browser.webRequest.onBeforeRequest.addListener(
  logURL,
  {urls: ["<all_urls>"]}
);

This code cancels requests for images that are made to URLs under "https://mdn.mozillademos.org/" (to see the effect, visit any page on MDN that contains images, such as webRequest):

// match pattern for the URLs to redirect
var pattern = "https://mdn.mozillademos.org/*";

// cancel function returns an object
// which contains a property `cancel` set to `true`
function cancel(requestDetails) {
  console.log("Canceling: " + requestDetails.url);
  return {cancel: true};
}

// add the listener,
// passing the filter argument and "blocking"
browser.webRequest.onBeforeRequest.addListener(
  cancel,
  {urls: [pattern], types: ["image"]},
  ["blocking"]
);

This code replaces, by redirection, all network requests for images that are made to URLs under "https://mdn.mozillademos.org/" (to see the effect, visit any page on MDN that contains images, such as webRequest):

// match pattern for the URLs to redirect
var pattern = "https://mdn.mozillademos.org/*";

// redirect function
// returns an object with a property `redirectURL`
// set to the new URL
function redirect(requestDetails) {
  console.log("Redirecting: " + requestDetails.url);
  return {
    redirectUrl: "https://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ldbj01lZiP1qe0eclo1_500.gif"
  };
}

// add the listener,
// passing the filter argument and "blocking"
browser.webRequest.onBeforeRequest.addListener(
  redirect,
  {urls:[pattern], types:["image"]},
  ["blocking"]
);

This code is exactly like the previous example, except that the listener handles the request asynchronously. It returns a Promise that sets a timer, and resolves with the redirect URL when the timer expires:

// match pattern for the URLs to redirect
var pattern = "https://mdn.mozillademos.org/*";

// URL we will redirect to
var redirectUrl = "https://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ldbj01lZiP1qe0eclo1_500.gif";

// redirect function returns a Promise
// which is resolved with the redirect URL when a timer expires
function redirectAsync(requestDetails) {
  console.log("Redirecting async: " + requestDetails.url);
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    window.setTimeout(() => {
      resolve({redirectUrl});
    }, 2000);
  });
}

// add the listener,
// passing the filter argument and "blocking"
browser.webRequest.onBeforeRequest.addListener(
  redirectAsync,
  {urls: [pattern], types: ["image"]},
  ["blocking"]
);

Another example, that redirects all images to a data url:

var pattern = "https://mdn.mozillademos.org/*";

var image = `
  <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="100%" height="100%">
    <rect style="stroke-width: 10; stroke: #666;" width="100%" height="100%" fill="#d4d0c8" />
    <text transform="translate(0, 9)" x="50%" y="50%" width="100%" fill="#666" height="100%" style="text-anchor: middle; font: bold 10pt 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif;">Blocked</text>
  </svg>
`;

function listener(details) {
  let redirectUrl = "data:image/svg+xml," + encodeURIComponent(image);
  return {redirectUrl};
}

browser.webRequest.onBeforeRequest.addListener(
  listener,
  {urls: [pattern], types: ["image"]},
  ["blocking"]
);

Here's another version:

function randomColor() {
  return "#" + Math.floor(Math.random()*16777215).toString(16);
}

var pattern = "https://mdn.mozillademos.org/*";

var image = `
  <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="100%" height="100%">
    <rect width="100%" height="100%" fill="${randomColor()}"/>
  </svg>
`;

function listener(details) {
  let redirectUrl = "data:image/svg+xml," + encodeURIComponent(image);
  return {redirectUrl};
}

browser.webRequest.onBeforeRequest.addListener(
  listener,
  {urls: [pattern], types: ["image"]},
  ["blocking"]
);

Example extensions

• http-response