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I publish an open source Chrome plugin that does this for 404 or 503 errors. Except it tries the Google cache first and only hits the Wayback Machine if it gets

I publish an open source Chrome plugin that does this for 404 or 503 errors. Except it tries the Google cache first and only hits the Wayback Machine if it gets a 404 from the Google cache. You can also turn it on and off manually if you don't want automatic redirection. When it finds a page in the Google cache or Wayback Machine it will change all links on that page to cache links, so if you're trying to browse a site that's down (rather than a single page) it's completely seamless. I started a Firefox extension and got the basic functionality working before getting bored reimplenting something I had already done. But now I've switched to Firefox for Android I'm thinking of reviving it, so I can have my plugin on mobile too. It's been pretty useful. I use it a couple times a week usually with about a 75% success rate at getting a cached or Wayback Machine page of a page that is either down or no longer has the content that used to be there. Edit: Also, it only turns on per-tab instead of browser-wide which I could see annoyed everybody that used similar plugins for Chrome that would turn the whole browser into "browse cache-mode" when activated.

avarun 10y ago
Can you link it? I would love to try it out.
- perfectfire 10y ago
  Here's the Chrome web store link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-cache-browser/kmjckhnhmegjfffjogbdefcbddmmchea https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-cache-brows... And here's the source: https://github.com/joelself/GoogleCacheBrowser https://github.com/joelself/GoogleCacheBrowser
TheWorldIsFun 10y ago
If by chrome plugin you meant extension then you might not have to recreate your chrome extension from scratch for firefox. Look at firefox's webExtensions page, it's pretty much compatible with most of chrome's api and you probably won't have to change your code all that much.
- perfectfire 10y ago
  Wow, yeah, I definitely meant extension. Don't know where plugin came from. I was already writing my Firefox extension using the then WIP Web Extensions api, but I don't remember it being compatible with Chrome extensions, but it's right there on their Web Extensions homepage: "To a large extent the system is compatible with the extension API supported by Google Chrome and Opera. Extensions written for these browsers will in most cases run in Firefox or Microsoft Edge with just a few changes." And it should even work in Edge. Now I get to go back and look at what the heck I was doing with the Firefox extension. Thanks for the info!

avarun 10y ago

Can you link it? I would love to try it out.

perfectfire 10y ago
Here's the Chrome web store link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-cache-browser/kmjckhnhmegjfffjogbdefcbddmmchea https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-cache-brows... And here's the source: https://github.com/joelself/GoogleCacheBrowser https://github.com/joelself/GoogleCacheBrowser

TheWorldIsFun 10y ago

If by chrome plugin you meant extension then you might not have to recreate your chrome extension from scratch for firefox. Look at firefox's webExtensions page, it's pretty much compatible with most of chrome's api and you probably won't have to change your code all that much.

perfectfire 10y ago
Wow, yeah, I definitely meant extension. Don't know where plugin came from. I was already writing my Firefox extension using the then WIP Web Extensions api, but I don't remember it being compatible with Chrome extensions, but it's right there on their Web Extensions homepage: "To a large extent the system is compatible with the extension API supported by Google Chrome and Opera. Extensions written for these browsers will in most cases run in Firefox or Microsoft Edge with just a few changes." And it should even work in Edge. Now I get to go back and look at what the heck I was doing with the Firefox extension. Thanks for the info!