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I have a strange fascination with knowing exactly how I discovered a particular artist, film, website, etc. I'd really love a browser extension that could keep

I have a strange fascination with knowing exactly how I discovered a particular artist, film, website, etc. I'd really love a browser extension that could keep track of how the user reached a given site. Then they could go back later and input, say, a YouTube URL, and it would show exactly what lead them to that song. I started writing such an extension myself, but I was clearly out of my element. So when Mozilla shut down their Firefox Add-on Builder, I lost motivation completely. For someone with experience created extensions, though, I imagine this would be pretty straightforward. EDIT: no, using the browser history is not good enough. Browsing is a non-linear activity (especially with multiple tabs open), and to visualize your path through the web you need a graph, not just a list of sites.

MrMeker 13y ago
This already exists for most browsers. Pressing Ctrl+H should take you right to it.
- fragmede 13y ago
  Yes, but it sucks - if you browse using tabs (and everyone I does), then the simple time-order list that comes by defaults on Firefox and Chrome just doesn't cut it. You can poke around and find the right history eventually but we've come to demand more of computers these days.
Blahah 13y ago
This is a very cool idea - for me the application would be more in research, when quite often I stumble across an idea, or go back to read an open tab, or read my Pocket, and when I want to see how I discovered it, can't figure out how I got there. Just a simple graph of history chains would be great.
lucb1e 13y ago
> "I'd really love a browser extension that could keep track of how the user reached a given site." I used to love to have this. I called it "browser history", but then Mozilla decided it made the browser so terribly slow that you can now no longer really configure how long history is retained. After a while it just disappears. I used to have my history all the way back from 2006...
- achal 13y ago
  Is this true? I checked and I seemed to have lost my history from before 2012, and assumed I'd messed up somewhere in transitioning between computers. I couldn't find any info about Firefox doing this (arbitrarily deleting history from the past), but I'm almost sure it does. Edit: This time I found it: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/Places_async_expiration https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/Places_async_expir... I find it rather annoying, however, that this isn't obvious. I like keeping all my history :( I'd rather I could at least keep the history somewhere, even if it didn't stay in Firefox's history view.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    Well, it's stored in a simple sqlite file (places.sqlite), so you can just do regular backups or import it into another DB.
sparkie 13y ago
I've seen this a few times, once as a firefox addon which is no longer available by the looks of it.[1] I'm pretty sure Mosaic tried a similar thing about 20 years ago. The other time I saw it was in the form of a DAG which appeared in a panel above the address bar which could be selectively hidden. The graphics were crude as I think it was rendered in GraphViz. I can't for the life of me remember where I saw this - tried searching for it again with no look. Pretty sure it was in a video demonstrating an experimental browser, but I'm lost as to which. (Maybe I dreamt it) I just found another while searching too.[2] [1]:http://www.technotraits.com/2009/09/browse-firefox-history-in-a-better-way-with-history-tree/ http://www.technotraits.com/2009/09/browse-firefox-history-i... [2]:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fromwheretowhere/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fromwheretowh...
peterjmag 13y ago
Same here! I've found that people often have really interesting stories surrounding their discovery of a favorite album (for instance), especially when they have strong emotional or sentimental attachments. I think it'd be really cool to tap into that and even help people recall things that they might not otherwise recall by showing them the "path" by which they arrived to an album, the date when they first listened to it, etc, and then collect those stories to share. Could also become an interesting approach to content discovery—through personal stories instead of similarity algorithms.
asaddhamani 13y ago
I have this exact same fascination and the need to know how exactly I discovered a website, etc. I used to think I was alone, finally I know I'm not. I guess I gotta make something for this, as I would not only be helping myself, but others as well.

MrMeker 13y ago

This already exists for most browsers. Pressing Ctrl+H should take you right to it.

fragmede 13y ago
Yes, but it sucks - if you browse using tabs (and everyone I does), then the simple time-order list that comes by defaults on Firefox and Chrome just doesn't cut it. You can poke around and find the right history eventually but we've come to demand more of computers these days.

Blahah 13y ago

This is a very cool idea - for me the application would be more in research, when quite often I stumble across an idea, or go back to read an open tab, or read my Pocket, and when I want to see how I discovered it, can't figure out how I got there. Just a simple graph of history chains would be great.

lucb1e 13y ago

> "I'd really love a browser extension that could keep track of how the user reached a given site." I used to love to have this. I called it "browser history", but then Mozilla decided it made the browser so terribly slow that you can now no longer really configure how long history is retained. After a while it just disappears. I used to have my history all the way back from 2006...

achal 13y ago
Is this true? I checked and I seemed to have lost my history from before 2012, and assumed I'd messed up somewhere in transitioning between computers. I couldn't find any info about Firefox doing this (arbitrarily deleting history from the past), but I'm almost sure it does. Edit: This time I found it: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/Places_async_expiration https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/Places_async_expir... I find it rather annoying, however, that this isn't obvious. I like keeping all my history :( I'd rather I could at least keep the history somewhere, even if it didn't stay in Firefox's history view.
- icebraining 13y ago
  Well, it's stored in a simple sqlite file (places.sqlite), so you can just do regular backups or import it into another DB.

sparkie 13y ago

I've seen this a few times, once as a firefox addon which is no longer available by the looks of it.[1] I'm pretty sure Mosaic tried a similar thing about 20 years ago. The other time I saw it was in the form of a DAG which appeared in a panel above the address bar which could be selectively hidden. The graphics were crude as I think it was rendered in GraphViz. I can't for the life of me remember where I saw this - tried searching for it again with no look. Pretty sure it was in a video demonstrating an experimental browser, but I'm lost as to which. (Maybe I dreamt it) I just found another while searching too.[2] [1]:http://www.technotraits.com/2009/09/browse-firefox-history-in-a-better-way-with-history-tree/ http://www.technotraits.com/2009/09/browse-firefox-history-i... [2]:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fromwheretowhere/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fromwheretowh...

peterjmag 13y ago

Same here! I've found that people often have really interesting stories surrounding their discovery of a favorite album (for instance), especially when they have strong emotional or sentimental attachments. I think it'd be really cool to tap into that and even help people recall things that they might not otherwise recall by showing them the "path" by which they arrived to an album, the date when they first listened to it, etc, and then collect those stories to share. Could also become an interesting approach to content discovery—through personal stories instead of similarity algorithms.

asaddhamani 13y ago

I have this exact same fascination and the need to know how exactly I discovered a website, etc. I used to think I was alone, finally I know I'm not. I guess I gotta make something for this, as I would not only be helping myself, but others as well.