LinkTrace — Highlight Links You've Clicked

Never lose track of which links you've already read.** LinkTrace marks every link you've clicked before in a dimmed, colored, or struck-through style — directly on the page, on any site — so you can scan a list of links and instantly tell what's new from what you've already seen. ### The problem this solves Your browser used to do this automatically: visited links turned purple, unvisited links stayed blue. That's gone on most of the modern web. News aggregators, forums, documentation sites, and single-page apps routinely override or strip that styling with their own CSS, or use client-side routing that never triggers it in the first place. The result: you re-click the same article, re-open the same thread, or lose your spot in a long list of search results because there's no visual signal telling you "you've been here." Chrome itself made this worse in 2025 by further restricting the native `:visited` style for privacy reasons (it now only applies within the same top-level site and frame), so even sites that never touched their CSS can lose the signal. LinkTrace brings it back — and makes it work everywhere, including sites that specifically suppress it. ### How it works LinkTrace reads your browser's own local history (the same data your browser already has) and compares it against the links on the page you're viewing. Any link whose destination you've already visited gets marked with your choice of style: - **Color + dim** — recolor the link and lower its opacity slightly - **Color only** — just recolor it, no opacity change - **Strikethrough** — a classic "done" look Pick any color you like from five presets or a full color picker. Changes apply instantly to every open tab. LinkTrace also keeps working as you scroll or as a page updates — a `MutationObserver` re-checks newly added links, so infinite-scroll feeds, single-page apps, and dynamically loaded comment threads all get marked correctly, not just the links present when the page first loaded. ### Who it's for - **Heavy readers** working through long lists of articles, forum threads, or search results who want to skip what they've already read - **Researchers** scanning citation lists or reference pages across multiple sessions - **Anyone browsing link-aggregator-style sites** (news digests, discussion boards, wikis, documentation hubs) that don't style visited links themselves - **Shoppers and job seekers** flipping through long listing pages who want to remember which ones they've already opened ### Per-site control Some sites don't need it, or you'd rather see every link fresh. Click the LinkTrace icon and toggle marking off for just the current site — every other tab keeps working normally. Turn it back on the same way, or from the full settings page. ### Privacy, in one sentence LinkTrace runs entirely inside your browser: it has no server, sends no data anywhere, doesn't use any account or sign-in, and doesn't load any remote code. The only "data" it uses is your own local Chrome history, read on-device to decide how to color a link — never copied, stored elsewhere, or transmitted. Full details in the [privacy policy](https://privacy-policy-production-7ebc.up.railway.app). ### Common questions **Does this slow down browsing?** No — LinkTrace batches its lookups and only checks new links as they appear, using the browser's idle time. **Will it mess up a site's own design?** LinkTrace only changes link color/opacity/strikethrough; it doesn't touch layout, fonts, or anything else on the page. **Does it work on Google, YouTube, Reddit, Hacker News-style sites, and news aggregators?** Yes — it's designed specifically for sites that hide or don't support native visited-link styling, including single-page apps and infinite-scroll feeds. **Does it sync across my devices?** Not yet — your marking style and per-site pause list are stored locally per browser profile. **Can I choose my own color?** Yes, from the options page — five quick presets or any custom color via the color picker. **Is my browsing history sent anywhere?** No. All lookups happen locally through Chrome's own history API. Nothing leaves your device.