Redirect URLs in Chrome?

Question

Is there any extension to Chrome that will let me force a URL from a particular domain to be redirected to another domain?

(E.g. Redirect http://www.google.com to https://encrypted.google.com.)

Note: I'm looking for an arbitrary redirector, not KB SSL Enforcer, which only works for the specific task of redirecting to HTTPS.

You could also consider using the HOSTS file as another method. — Synetech, May 23 '11 at 20:33
@Synetech: Would that redirect just the root page, or anything with a particular domain? — user541686, May 23 '11 at 20:39
It would redirect the whole domain (or subdomain as the case may be). — Synetech, May 24 '11 at 02:53
@Synetech You're confusing redirecting with resolving, changing the IP address that an address resolves to will not work in this case. He wants to redirect to a different domain, not try to load that domain name on the wrong web server. — Justin Buser, Jun 26 '12 at 09:19
@JustinBuser, *> You're confusing redirecting with resolving* No, I'm, not. Under certain circumstances, there is no difference. I use the HOSTS file to redirect all ads to a local web-server that is set up to accept any URL and replace pages with a small tiny bit of HTML that simply says `[ad]` and pictures that are a single transparent pixel. In other words, the ad sites are redirected to localhost (though they easily could be redirected to another machine). — Synetech, Jun 26 '12 at 15:43
@JustinBuser, *> changing the IP address that an address resolves to will not work in this case. He wants to redirect to a different domain, not try to load that domain name on the wrong web server* He has not indicated what the actual domains he wants to redirect from/to are (he used Google as an *example*), so it may or may not work. That's why I said he could **consider** it as a *comment* and not an *answer*. — Synetech, Jun 26 '12 at 15:46
@Synetech _No, I'm, not. Under certain circumstances, there is no difference_ You're just wrong, they are two COMPLETELY different things. Putting an entry in your hosts file pointing Domain A to IP X changes what Domain A RESOLVES to, that does not REDIRECT anything because it never goes to the original IP. REGARDLESS, that WOULD NOT solve anything, putting an entry for www.google.com with the IP address for encrypted.google.com into your hosts file would result in Chrome trying to load www.google.com from the wrong IP, it would not REDIRECT (i.e. the address would remain www.google.com) — Justin Buser, Jul 15 '12 at 14:35
@JustinBuser, it *would* redirect the browser from the original IP to the specified IP. Imagine digging a ditch to re-route water. You dig a ditch, open the dam, then the water goes to the new spot instead of where it would have gone. I never said anything about 302, so you are only arguing semantics. — Synetech, Jul 15 '12 at 17:03

Sathyajith Bhat · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-09T12:22:19.287

33

I had built a Chrome extension which does this.

^{Note: I built this for just 2 sites - just for the heck of it - by no means it's professional quality™. Please don't flame me for crappy code :)}

Edit: Updated to manifest v2, which brings in certain additional restrictions.

manifest.json

{
  "name": "URL Redirect",
  "version": "0.2",
  "description": "Checks URL and redirects as required.",
  "background": { 
     "page":"bg.html"
     },
   "manifest_version": 2,
   "content_scripts": [
   {
     "matches": ["http://*/*", "https://*/*"],
     "js": ["content.js"]
   }
   ],
  "permissions": ["tabs"]
}

bg.html

<html>
  <script src="redirect.js"></script>
</html>

redirect.js

chrome.extension.onRequest.addListener(function(request, sender) {
        chrome.tabs.update(sender.tab.id, {url: request.redirect});
    });

content.js

var pattern=/\bBlocked/;
var viewtext_base_url = "http://viewtext.org/article?url=";
var newurl;
if (pattern.test(window.document.title)) // if it matches pattern defined above
{
  newurl = viewtext_base_url + encodeURIComponent(window.location.href);
  chrome.extension.sendRequest({redirect: newurl}); // send message to redirect

}

To install this, create files with filenames as mentioned above the codeblock.

enter image description here

Once all 3 files are created, Click on Chrome Menu → Tools → Extensions. Click the "+" on Developer Mode. Click on Load Unpacked extension and point to the directory where the files are stored.

enter image description here

Edit the files are required, and uninstall and reinstall the extension as mentioned above

edited Oct 09 '12 at 12:22

answered May 16 '11 at 09:00

Sathyajith Bhat

61,504
38
179
264

Omg cool! How do I install it? (Sorry I have no experience with developing Chrome extensions, haha.) – user541686 May 16 '11 at 09:05
@Mehrdad expanded the answer – Sathyajith Bhat May 16 '11 at 09:19
ofcourse, if you aren't looking at editing the files, I could've packed the files in to a Chrome Extension.... – Sathyajith Bhat May 16 '11 at 09:21
Beautiful, thank you so much! It teaches me some JavaScript too! :D – user541686 May 16 '11 at 09:25
welcome! I had developed this to learn Chrome extension development. (and to get around *cough*websense*cough*). – Sathyajith Bhat May 16 '11 at 11:26
Perfect. Exactly what I needed to get around the NYTimes paywall... – Yossi Farjoun Aug 25 '11 at 14:10
Thanks! BTW, is there a way to debug in chrome the script that is in bg.html? – Yossi Farjoun Aug 25 '11 at 14:36
@YossiFarjoun Yes, you log to error console using [console.log](http://stackoverflow.com/q/217957/92837) – Sathyajith Bhat Aug 25 '11 at 15:28
Note, I tried this and you don't actually need to use a bg.html for this plugin. You can just assign 'window.location = newurl' instead of doing the message passing. Maybe that wasn't true on older versions of Chrome? – apenwarr Feb 16 '12 at 00:42
@apenwarr You need to go the content script way to inject the code to analyse the page, and at least earlier, `window.location` wasn't possible. Refer to my [so] question [How do I redirect to a URL using a Google Chrome Extension & Content Script?](http://stackoverflow.com/q/4859689). `window.location = newurl` was my first approach while writing this, maybe something's changed since then – Sathyajith Bhat Feb 16 '12 at 02:39
Perhaps this has changed recently. It worked for me in Chrome 16/17. – apenwarr Feb 17 '12 at 03:47
@apenwarr are you doing a simple redirect or are you checking for conditions (as in if you're on domain x & so on)? Can you post a pastebin of your code? – Sathyajith Bhat Feb 17 '12 at 04:01
Can it be used to edit the URL of CSS/JS the webpage is trying to load? – Nakilon Mar 26 '15 at 22:46
@Nakilon no, that wont be possible – Sathyajith Bhat Mar 27 '15 at 03:56
Although this looked promising, none of this seems to have any effect for me. Maybe Chrome changed. – Ryan Dec 17 '19 at 19:06

Sachin Jain · Answer 2 · 2023-03-08T16:20:13.903

17

I know I am a bit late in the game to answer this question Still I would like to answer this for future readers. Have a look at

Requestly - Open Source Chrome Extension to modify Network Requests.

Github Repo - https://github.com/requestly/requestly

Currently, You can set up rules for

Redirect a request URL to another url.
Block some requests.
Replace some part in the URL with another string. (Even the whole URL can be replaced)
Add/Remove/Modify Headers in HTTP(s) Request and Response. You can set up Header Modification Rules only for specified URLs now.

Screenshots for more understanding:

List of Rules

List of Rule Types

New Redirect Rule

There are a lot of things in the roadmap to be covered like

Setting custom headers (Done)
Switching User Agents
Setting parameters in request (Done)

.. and a lot more.

PS: I have created this So you can blame me if you do not find this helpful :)

edited Mar 08 '23 at 16:20

answered Jul 08 '14 at 05:08

Sachin Jain

431
3
15

Headers Modification is now present in Requestly. – Sachin Jain Jan 08 '15 at 05:07
1

This is an awesome extension! I logged in just so I can give you a +1, hopefully more people find out about it :) – Adi Ulici Feb 11 '15 at 12:11
Regex Support is also available in Requestly – Sachin Jain Oct 15 '15 at 04:45
@sachinjain024 the link to github repo is dead as of now. – Andrei Kucharavy Dec 19 '17 at 08:55
1

@AndreiKucharavy Updated the answer as well and there you go - https://github.com/requestly/requestly – Sachin Jain Mar 08 '23 at 16:20

score 9 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 13:48

9

I have developed a pre packaged user friendly redirector called Switcheroo if you're interested:

Setup custom redirect rules for any http request i.e pages, scripts, images etc. Uses a simple string replace to do this.

edited Jun 12 '20 at 13:48

Community

1

answered Nov 08 '12 at 10:51

ranjez

99
1
1

5

Open source? :) – user72923 Nov 19 '12 at 23:10
1

Too bad Switcheroo doesn't support switching HTTP schemes (as indicated in the example in the question). – Martijn Jul 06 '14 at 19:02
2

Also too bad it needs permission to "Read and change all your data on the websites you visit" just to redirect. – Taylan Feb 01 '17 at 20:21

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 28 '12 at 09:40

4

A bit late, but this extension should surely do the trick: Redirector.

And it's an arbitrary redirector.

answered Feb 28 '12 at 09:40

user1237509

41
1

Works great to avoid the Facebook start page, Match: http?://www.facebook.com, Substitute:(.*), Replacement:https://www.facebook.com/messages – lony Apr 25 '14 at 09:51
4

oh no, it's been removed? looked great from the screenshots! (regexes and such, which is what I need) – Don Hatch May 22 '14 at 00:38
1

https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/ – Boris Verkhovskiy Aug 10 '20 at 23:00

Redirect URLs in Chrome?

4 Answers4

Requestly - Open Source Chrome Extension to modify Network Requests.

Linked