4 ms·

Open-source browser history page with analytics

63 points by millertime802 6y ago

millertime802 6y ago
I've always thought that some cool insights could be drawn from examining a person's browser history, so I went ahead and built this chrome extension. It overrides the default history page with a better ui for searching and filtering, plus I've included an analytics page that provides some neat information about your browsing habits such as top sites and a category breakdown of your history. My friend suggested open sourcing this project because nobody wants to give an extension access to their history for obvious reasons. The extension has no tracking, no database, no user accounts, etc so its totally private for a user. Just figured some people might be interested in having the analytic of how they spend their time on the web. Hope some people find this interesting!
- petercooper 6y ago
  The extension has no tracking, no database, no user accounts, etc so its totally private for a user. I, and I suspect most others, really appreciate knowing that. I think adding something along these lines to the Chrome Web Store description would really help as I imagine most people, even those who are not privacy conscious, might be skittish about any potential for their history to leak out.
  - millertime802 6y ago
    Great idea! Thanks :)
- tfsh 6y ago
  I've been wanting to draw insights from my browsing history for a while, in particular; how my browsing history habits have changed over the course of months - to years. Unfortunately Chrome clears your history after n months which is a pain as I've enjoyed looking at other history visulation tools offered on the web store but am constantly disappointed by the lack of data Chrome provides. Something I've been thinking about doing for a while is to create a history backup to a user controlled service (probably my VPS with an exposed API and pub key authentication), this could provide a seamless layer of access to help facilitate long term visualizations.
- ErikBjare 6y ago
  That's really cool, I've been building ActivityWatch (https://activitywatch.net https://activitywatch.net) that shares similar goals. It's an open-source "screen time" that stores everything locally, and supports (optionally) using a browser extension to gather browsing data.
  - mikestaub 6y ago
    I love ActivityWatch! I especially like the VSCode extension as it shows me which files I spend the most time in.
  - millertime802 6y ago
    Nice! It looks really cool and definitely more useful than what I've built haha. I'll check it out!
millertime802 6y ago
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/browsertime/gaafojlhhgdkcjiglocphepomogeagie/ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/browsertime/gaafoj...
mikestaub 6y ago
This is great! Nice work
dbtc 6y ago
“Other” ;)
- millertime802 6y ago
  there is a category for "Adult" if that is what you are implying haha
makeworld 6y ago
Anyone have suggestions for Firefox?
- flas9sd 6y ago
  there used to be this nice "about:me" extension (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/about:me https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/about:me), but is defunct. It's source is released at https://github.com/leibovic/about-me https://github.com/leibovic/about-me and waiting to be turned into a webextension. I often query the places.sqlite directly. Sqlite is missing some handy string functions though, but there's usually an extension available.
obilgic 6y ago
I need a smart search engine for my browsing history, and end bookmarking.
tfsh 6y ago
This is really cool, it looks sleek and I like the category break down. However there is a distinct lack of metrics, visualisations and avaliable data - seems the dashboard only shows me information from the last week. The page also kept freezing for me which is a major deterrent given it replaces the native Chrome history UI. On that note, I'm surprised extensions can access and manipulate internal Chrome pages, that seems like a major oversight - especially as Chrome says "You're viewing a secure Google Chrome page".
lazyresearcher 6y ago
Might be out of scope of this extension but I'd like a way to visualize my history as a referral graph, what site brought me to which and where did I go after that.
IamZeroBalance 6y ago
Nice Job! very interesting..

63 points by millertime802 6y ago

I've always thought that some cool insights could be drawn from examining a person's browser history, so I went ahead and built this chrome extension. It overrides the default history page with a better ui for searching and filtering, plus I've included an analytics page that provides some neat information about your browsing habits such as top sites and a category breakdown of your history. My friend suggested open sourcing this project because nobody wants to give an extension access to their history for obvious reasons. The extension has no tracking, no database, no user accounts, etc so its totally private for a user. Just figured some people might be interested in having the analytic of how they spend their time on the web. Hope some people find this interesting!

petercooper 6y ago
The extension has no tracking, no database, no user accounts, etc so its totally private for a user. I, and I suspect most others, really appreciate knowing that. I think adding something along these lines to the Chrome Web Store description would really help as I imagine most people, even those who are not privacy conscious, might be skittish about any potential for their history to leak out.
- millertime802 6y ago
  Great idea! Thanks :)
tfsh 6y ago
I've been wanting to draw insights from my browsing history for a while, in particular; how my browsing history habits have changed over the course of months - to years. Unfortunately Chrome clears your history after n months which is a pain as I've enjoyed looking at other history visulation tools offered on the web store but am constantly disappointed by the lack of data Chrome provides. Something I've been thinking about doing for a while is to create a history backup to a user controlled service (probably my VPS with an exposed API and pub key authentication), this could provide a seamless layer of access to help facilitate long term visualizations.
ErikBjare 6y ago
That's really cool, I've been building ActivityWatch (https://activitywatch.net https://activitywatch.net) that shares similar goals. It's an open-source "screen time" that stores everything locally, and supports (optionally) using a browser extension to gather browsing data.
- mikestaub 6y ago
  I love ActivityWatch! I especially like the VSCode extension as it shows me which files I spend the most time in.
- millertime802 6y ago
  Nice! It looks really cool and definitely more useful than what I've built haha. I'll check it out!

millertime802 6y ago

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/browsertime/gaafojlhhgdkcjiglocphepomogeagie/ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/browsertime/gaafoj...

mikestaub 6y ago

This is great! Nice work

dbtc 6y ago

“Other” ;)

millertime802 6y ago
there is a category for "Adult" if that is what you are implying haha

makeworld 6y ago

Anyone have suggestions for Firefox?

flas9sd 6y ago
there used to be this nice "about:me" extension (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/about:me https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/about:me), but is defunct. It's source is released at https://github.com/leibovic/about-me https://github.com/leibovic/about-me and waiting to be turned into a webextension. I often query the places.sqlite directly. Sqlite is missing some handy string functions though, but there's usually an extension available.

obilgic 6y ago

I need a smart search engine for my browsing history, and end bookmarking.

tfsh 6y ago

This is really cool, it looks sleek and I like the category break down. However there is a distinct lack of metrics, visualisations and avaliable data - seems the dashboard only shows me information from the last week. The page also kept freezing for me which is a major deterrent given it replaces the native Chrome history UI. On that note, I'm surprised extensions can access and manipulate internal Chrome pages, that seems like a major oversight - especially as Chrome says "You're viewing a secure Google Chrome page".

lazyresearcher 6y ago

Might be out of scope of this extension but I'd like a way to visualize my history as a referral graph, what site brought me to which and where did I go after that.

IamZeroBalance 6y ago

Nice Job! very interesting..