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Other bot · Google

Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy is Google’s other bot

Chrome's Private Prefetch Proxy is a Google service that prefetches pages linked from Google Search for Chrome users. It hides the user's IP address from the site during prefetch.

Verifiable operator

Our take

Allow

It speeds up visits from Google Search and can be throttled through the traffic-advice file.

User agent

Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy

Activity

Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy is crawling at a steady rate

Requests per site per dayLAST 28 DAYS
Sep 17Sep 26Oct 5Oct 14
What it crawls30 DAYS
  • Not found (404) 100%
  • Other 0.4%

01 · Operator

Who operates Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy

Company
Google
Type
Other bot
Official docs
developer.chrome.com

02 · Behavior

What Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy does

Chrome prefetches likely next pages through a Google proxy, so they load faster after a click. Before prefetching, it checks the site's /.well-known/traffic-advice file. Prefetch requests carry the header Sec-Purpose: Prefetch; anonymous-client-ip and no cookies.

03 · Impact

Why Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy matters for your site

If you allow it

  • Pages linked from Google Search can load faster for visitors
  • Prefetches do not carry cookies or reveal user IPs

If you block it

  • Prefetched pages may never be viewed, adding server load
  • Prefetches can inflate server-side page view counts

04 · Allow

How to allow Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy

robots.txt

# Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy has no documented robots.txt token and does not read robots.txt.
# Use a Cloudflare, nginx or Apache rule instead.

Cloudflare

# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy")
Action:     Skip › All Super Bot Fight Mode rules

# Also check Security › Bots: "Block AI bots" can block it regardless of robots.txt.

WordPress

# Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy has no documented robots.txt token and does not read robots.txt.
# Use a Cloudflare, nginx or Apache rule instead.

nginx

# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy") { return 403; }

Apache

# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

05 · Block

How to block Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy

Start with robots.txt. If Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy keeps showing up in your logs, block it at your CDN or web server.

robots.txt

# Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy has no documented robots.txt token and does not read robots.txt.
# Use a Cloudflare, nginx or Apache rule instead.

Cloudflare

# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy")
Action:     Block

WordPress

# Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy has no documented robots.txt token and does not read robots.txt.
# Use a Cloudflare, nginx or Apache rule instead.

nginx

# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy") {
    return 403;
}

Apache

# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>

06 · User agents

User agents we see for Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy

User agentShareLast activeStatus
Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy 99% Today Verified
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; K) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) SamsungBrowser/30.0 Chrome… 0.3% 22 days ago Verified
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 7.0; SM-G928G Build/NRD90M) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrom… 0.1% 7 days ago Verified
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; K) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) SamsungBrowser/29.0 Chrome… 0.1% 19 days ago Verified

07 · Verification

Is it really Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy?

Anyone can copy a user agent. Real Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy requests come from the IP ranges published at gstatic.com/chrome/prefetchproxy/prefetch_proxy_geofeed.

IP addresses we saw from verified Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy requests

IP rangeShareLast active
66.249.88.0/27 27% Today
66.249.93.0/27 18% Yesterday
74.125.215.0/27 15% 8 days ago
74.125.212.0/27 11% Today
192.178.8.0/27 7.3% Today
64.233.173.0/27 7.0% 13 days ago
66.249.81.0/27 6.6% 2 days ago
66.249.82.0/27 6.3% Today
142.250.33.0/27 1.6% Today
192.42.116.14 0.2% 7 days ago

Always check against the operator’s current list; ranges change.

FAQ

Questions about Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy

Why does Chrome Privacy Preserving Prefetch Proxy request /.well-known/traffic-advice?

The proxy checks this file to learn whether, and how much, prefetch traffic the site accepts. A missing file causes 404 errors but no harm.

How do I stop Chrome from prefetching my site?

Serve /.well-known/traffic-advice with MIME type application/trafficadvice+json. Set "disallow": true for the prefetch-proxy user agent, or a fraction to throttle.

How can I recognize prefetch requests?

Prefetch requests include the header Sec-Purpose: Prefetch; anonymous-client-ip. Chrome publishes a geofeed of proxy IP addresses.

Last updated Oct 14, 2026

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