Inspiration
We hated clicking broken links from these shortened URL providers that are a frequently going down or being sold.
What it does
It reads all of the links on a webpage upon load, determines which URLs are shortened, and requests the original URLs from a server with an enormous database of known shortened URLs and their original links.
How I built it
This chrome extension was built using javascript, and it communicates with a Python server using json requests.
Challenges I ran into
It was a challenge communicating with the server and properly replacing the links after they were returned.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We also implemented a link counter that displays to the user the number of links that have been replaced on a page.
What I learned
We learned: how to make a chrome extension, how to replace href attributes of link elements on a webpage in real time, and how to communicate with a python server from a chrome extension.
What's next for 301 Remover
Next, we'd like to implement functionality on https sites, poll the existing shortening sites when we find a link that we don't already know about, and actually launch it as a chrome extension.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.