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Link Cleaner resurrection project

Final target

A release of a better "Link Cleaner" extension on AMO.

Name

LinkCleaner+? LinkCleanerNew? LinkCleanerWat?

How

Original project seems not be maintained anymore, so two choices:

1. fork it and publish a new extension on AMO (with credits @idlewan)
   • PRO: faster moving for us to do, completely independent
   • CON: we'd start from scratch
2. ask grants to commit as additional maintainers, revive project
   • PRO: better project visibility, +10K downloads already
   • CON: if the previous maintainer responsive enough on merge windows and publishing on AMO?

The proposal

• I'd start from my fork because:

  • codebase already modularised
  • has context menu
  • has localized options
  • improved Amazon cleaning (see also this review)
  • code needs review from an expert eye ;-)
  • BUG: user options are not loaded when opening the browser (empty Object from Promise browser.storage.local.get())
  • TODO: complete AMP sanitizer
  • Question: is there a better way for options.js and background.js scripts to share resources (currently duplicating settings = {}) rather than have them share resources through a sendMessage(). I'm not sure about that because they live in different context.

• merge @riamse code

  • flexible URLs parser instead of redundant code
    • discuss this issue
  • fbcdn URLs sanitized
  • other things in the stash?
    • nope

• cherry pick and merge more URL sanitization from other forks:

  • https://github.com/xcsh/link_cleaner/commits/master
  • https://github.com/SrKomodo/link_cleaner/commits/add-youtube-redirect
  • https://github.com/spambusters/link_cleaner/commits/master
  • https://github.com/FunkyNoodles/link_cleaner/commits/master

New feature and bugs reported from users

• review: Please add possibility to clean links from Product Hunt (?ref=producthunt), thanks.

• review: In order to display cleaner URL in address bar it adds second visit to history. Not worth installing for the few urls cleared in address bar and spammed history.

• review: disq.us/url?url= like these?

• The background scripts run when a tab is reloading. Can we move scripts to content_scripts?

• infinite loop on [ ] clean_amazon and [x] clean_utm.

• javascript-standard linting

• Is it possible to have multiple listeners on <all_urls> running serialized? Not sure about that.

• copy link right-click menu only cleans from utm_*.

• add https://commentbox.io/?ref=stackshare

• Can we avoid running the code twice when opening a new tab?

General thoughts

The big picture: try to gather interest into one single project rather having many forks with "one commit". Be responsive with pull requests.

Don't forget to be crystal clear with users on how the extension works, see this review.