Redirect URLs in Chrome?

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


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 - A Chrome Extension to modify Network Requests.

Currently, You can setup rules for

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

Screenshots for more understanding:

  • List of Rules

List of Rules

  • List of Rule Types

List of Rule Types

  • New Redirect Rule

Creating a Redirect Rule

There are lot of things in roadmap to be covered in requestly like

  • Setting custom headers (Done)
  • Switching User Agents
  • Setting parameters in request (Done) Use Redirect/Replace feature to accomplish this.

.. and a lot more.

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


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.