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https://github.com/imurray/redirectify

Browser extension to redirect pages based on rules. Intended to stop the browser following links straight to the PDF of a paper, but instead to go first to the HTML index page for the paper.
https://github.com/imurray/redirectify

Last synced: 6 days ago
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Browser extension to redirect pages based on rules. Intended to stop the browser following links straight to the PDF of a paper, but instead to go first to the HTML index page for the paper.

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README 

        
# Redirectify



> :warning: **The Chrome version of this extension is currently in a [separate branch for Chrome](https://github.com/imurray/redirectify/tree/manifest3).**

> This branch is for the Firefox version.

> In theory I intend to unify the two versions, but no promises if/when I'll find the time.



Links to academic papers in emails and on websites often point to the PDF of the

paper. However, on sites like [arXiv](https://arxiv.org/), I'd much rather be

pointed to the HTML page. The index page is quick to load, and has meta-data not

available in the PDF, such as the version history. I've given up trying to ask

people not to deep-link to PDFs, and have instead written a browser extension to

do what I want.



Install links: [Firefox](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/redirectify/) and [Chrome](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/redirectify/mhjmbfadcbhilcfdhkkepffbnjaghfie)



After installing this extension, links to PDFs on quite a few academic pages

(listed below) redirect to an HTML index page, unless you clicked on the link

from the main site.



* ACL Anthology: [this pdf link](https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W19-4427.pdf) redirects to [this webpage](https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W19-4427)

* ACM: [this pdf link](https://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=2670318&ftid=1557218&dwn=1&CFID=12379622&CFTOKEN=cdcc86cc1f6f814d-6AE9FE9E-CF62-4ED9-0EE360EB7CBB2E50) redirects to [this webpage](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2670318)

* arXiv: [this pdf link](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1602.07527.pdf) redirects to [this webpage](https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.07527)

* bioRxiv: [this pdf link](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/09/18/113480.full.pdf) redirects to [this webpage](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/09/18/113480)

* Citeseerx: [this pdf link](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.115.6700&rep=rep1&type=pdf) redirects to [this webpage](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.115.6700)

* Indico: [this pdf link](https://indico.cern.ch/event/24728/attachments/424989/590020/Kraft-Journal_Radiation_Research.07.pdf) redirects to [this webpage](https://indico.cern.ch/event/748043/contributions/3326031/)

* JMLR: [this pdf link](http://www.jmlr.org/papers/volume17/16-272/16-272.pdf) redirects to [this webpage](http://www.jmlr.org//papers/v17/16-272.html)

* JSTOR: [this pdf link](https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/105741.pdf?refreqid=excelsior) redirects to [this webpage](https://www.jstor.org/stable/105741)

* NeurIPS: [this old-style pdf link](https://papers.nips.cc/paper/6084-fast-free-inference-of-simulation-models-with-bayesian-conditional-density-estimation.pdf) redirects to [this webpage](https://papers.nips.cc/paper/6084-fast-free-inference-of-simulation-models-with-bayesian-conditional-density-estimation). And [this new-style pdf link](https://papers.neurips.cc/paper/2016/file/6aca97005c68f1206823815f66102863-Paper.pdf) redirects to [this webpage](https://papers.neurips.cc/paper/2016/hash/6aca97005c68f1206823815f66102863-Abstract.html).

* OpenReview: [this pdf link](https://openreview.net/pdf?id=rkdU7tCaZ) redirects to [this webpage](https://openreview.net/forum?id=rkdU7tCaZ)

* PMLR: [this pdf link](http://proceedings.mlr.press/v9/murray10a/murray10a.pdf) redirects to [this webpage](http://proceedings.mlr.press/v9/murray10a.html)

* Project Euclid: [this pdf link](https://projecteuclid.org/download/pdfview_1/euclid.ba/1480129463) redirects to [this webpage](https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.ba/1480129463). (Supporting URLs containing `Download?urlid=` turned out to be complicated. I may have to remove those rules if they cause too many issues.)

* Research Gate: [this pdf link](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Freek_Stulp/publication/268382567_Path_Integral_Reinforcement_Learning/links/5565ab6208ae94e957207459/Path-Integral-Reinforcement-Learning.pdf) redirects to [this webpage](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268382567_Path_Integral_Reinforcement_Learning)

* Semantic Scholar: [this pdf link](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2a72/6fc0ea9fd9206b0fc08e69a3ebbdb9aedbcb.pdf) redirects to [this webpage](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Comparing-Topic-Models-for-a-Movie-Recommendation-Bergamaschi-Po/2a726fc0ea9fd9206b0fc08e69a3ebbdb9aedbcb)



I gave the extension a fairly generic name. The redirect rules are stored in

a list at the top of the code, and can easily be added to. However, making this

list updatable within the extension is unlikely to happen soon, partly because

of time, partly because allowing any URL to be redirected opens up security issues.



## Download



If you just want to use the extension as it is, get it from one of the official addon

sites:



* [Redirectify for Firefox](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/redirectify/)



* [Redirectify for Chrome](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/redirectify/mhjmbfadcbhilcfdhkkepffbnjaghfie)



Until the branches are unified, the Chome and Firefox versions are likely to offer a slightly different set of redirects.

The Firefox version should work in Firefox for Android. It used to be

[a bit of a pain to install Firefox extensions on Android](https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extension-support-in-firefox-for-android-nightly/),

but may be easier now.



## Alternatives



* [arxiv-url-replacer](https://github.com/jithurjacob/arxiv-url-replacer) a

  different Chrome extension for arXiv, with a GUI. Edits links in pages, instead of

  intercepting requests. A similar approach could be taken using

  [TamperMonkey](https://tampermonkey.net/), which would immediately work in

  multiple browsers. It can be tricky to catch all links though.



* [Allen.YL Lee](https://twitter.com/allenyllee) points out that

  a bookmarklet could be used to escape from a PDF after the fact, and

  [provides an example](https://gist.github.com/allenyllee/0c90341680459203df6453b5d60d28f2).



And see the forks of this Github repo.



## Hacking



The code is written as a WebExtension for Firefox. It did work in Chrome, but

Google are pulling support for the API it uses.

There's currently a [separate branch for Chrome](https://github.com/imurray/redirectify/tree/manifest3).

My intention is to move back towards a single code-base, but I want to wait for

Mozilla to settle on what their manifest v3 support will be, and I may not find

the time.



If you want to add to the redirect rules, you currently have to edit the source

code. To run the extension from the source:



* Firefox: go to `about:debugging` and click "Load Temporary Add-on".

  Select either of the files in the `src` directory. See [Mozilla's

  WebExtensions documentation](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions)

  for more details.



* Chrome: see the [separate branch for Chrome](https://github.com/imurray/redirectify/tree/manifest3)



If proposing code, please check both of the following:



* Requests for PDFs from external sites or the location bar are redirected.



* Each redirect ends up at an HTML page with a link to the PDF, and clicking

  that link does give the PDF.



If you add support for a new site, please add an example PDF URL to `test_cases`.



Experience suggests I might take ages to look at proposed changes; sorry.

I don't want to pester 100s of people with permissions warnings, so I

will delay adding support for new sites until I'm forced to make a major update (if ever).

Eventually I hope to make the rules configurable, opt-in, and use optional permissions.

But it's been years, and I haven't found the time to do it yet.