npm ERR! registry error parsing json - While trying to install Cordova for Ionic Framework in Windows 8

In my case, I had a very old version of npm. Upgrading npm using sudo npm install npm -g fixed the problem for me. Additionally I also did rm -rf node_modules and npm cache clean and npm config set registry "http://registry.npmjs.org/"

I had similar problem. I rаn npm cache clear, closed android SDK manager(which was open before) and re-ran npm install -g cordova and that was enough to solve the problem.

npm config set registry "http://registry.npmjs.org"

Solved the issue for me. Note that it wouldn't accecpt a forward slash at the end of the url and it had to be entered exactly as shown above.