Is there a function to get the current user object that avoids accessing the global variable? I've always gone with this global $user;. However, I seem to remember seeing something in a contributed module that returned the current user object without using the global $user.

Does such a function exist in Drupal 7 core, or is using the global variable the de-facto recommended way to get the current user object?
The function you could use is user_uid_optional_load(); without arguments, it returns the user object for the currently logged-in user. It still uses the global $user, and loads the full object from the database, including the fields associated to users, but it avoids your code accidentally change the content of the global variable $user, as it is not referenced from your code.

function user_uid_optional_load($uid = NULL) {
  if (!isset($uid)) {
    $uid = $GLOBALS['user']-&gt;uid;
  }
  return user_load($uid);
}


If you don't need the full object, then you can use the code already reported in the other answers. If you want to be sure you don't alter the global object, you can copy the global variable into a local variable, as in the following snippet.

$account = $GLOBALS['user'];
// Use $account.


In Drupal 8, you simply use the static method \Drupal::currentUser() to get the equivalent of Drupal 7 $GLOBALS['user'] and \Drupal\user\Entity\User::load(\Drupal::currentUser()-&gt;id()) to get a fully loaded object with all its field API fields. There isn't anymore the risk of overriding a global variable with all the consequences.
In the case you need to switch the current user with, for example, the anonymous user, the code you use in Drupal 8 is the following one.

$accountSwitcher = Drupal::service('account_switcher');
$accountSwitcher-&gt;switchTo(new Drupal\Core\Session\AnonymousUserSession());

// Your code here.

// Eventually, restore the user account.
$accountSwitcher-&gt;switchBack();