Universal Link Preview on Hover

WHAT IT DOES Universal Link Preview on Hover displays a detailed preview tooltip when you hover over any link on a webpage. The tooltip shows the full URL, the linked page's title, the domain name, a favicon, and a brief content snippet extracted from the linked page. This helps you make informed decisions before clicking links, avoid phishing attempts by previewing suspicious URLs, and quickly assess whether a link leads to useful content. The tool works on internal and external links alike, with optional filtering to show previews only for off-site links. WHERE IT RUNS This extension works on any website across the entire web. It functions on articles, search results, social media feeds, forums, documentation, and any page containing links. The tool automatically attaches hover handlers to every link on the page and adapts to dynamically loaded content. HOW TO USE Install the extension and navigate to any webpage. Hover over any link and wait a moment — a preview tooltip appears showing information about the linked page. Customize the experience using the overlay panel: adjust the preview delay (how long to wait before showing the tooltip), choose the tooltip position (above, below, left, or right of the link), toggle which information appears (favicon, page title, URL, content snippet), and enable "External links only" to restrict previews to links pointing outside the current domain. Click "Refresh Links" to re-scan the page for dynamically loaded links, or "Clear Cache" to reset the metadata cache and force fresh fetches. TECHNICAL SECTION — METADATA EXTRACTION AND CACHING The extension uses a dual-layer approach to gather link preview data. For each link hover, it first checks an in-memory cache keyed by the URL — if the metadata is already stored, it displays immediately. For uncached URLs, the tool uses GM_xmlhttpRequest to fetch the linked page and extract metadata. It parses the HTML response using regular expressions to find the page title ( tag) and meta description (standard description and Open Graph description). Favicons are generated using Google's favicon service (https://www.google.com/s2/favicons). To prevent excessive network requests, the tool implements a request deduplication system — multiple simultaneous hovers on the same URL share a single fetch, with all callbacks receiving the same result. The cache persists only in memory for the current page session and is cleared on navigation. A configurable preview delay (default 400ms) prevents accidental tooltip triggers during rapid cursor movement. THE PANEL — DRAG / PER-SITE POSITION / SNAP / COLLAPSE / RESIZE / ESCAPE The overlay panel is fully interactive and designed for seamless multitasking. Drag it anywhere on the screen using the handle at the top of the panel; the position is saved per site so it stays where you left it across sessions. The panel includes a snap-to-edge feature that gently anchors the overlay to the nearest screen edge when released. Click the collapse button to minimize the panel to a compact pill showing the current preview status; expand it again with a single click. Resize the panel vertically by dragging the bottom-right corner to view more controls. Press the Escape key at any time to instantly close the overlay; it reappears on the next page navigation or refresh. PLEASE NOTE This extension requires the free BotGentz companion extension to function, as it provides the underlying content script injection and cross-origin communication framework. No personal data, browsing history, or link content is stored, transmitted, or shared. The extension fetches the linked page's HTML solely to extract metadata for the preview; no information is transmitted to any server other than the linked page itself. Settings are stored locally in your browser using GM_setValue and are never sent to any external server. The extension does not access or store login credentials, financial data, or personally identifiable information. Some websites may block the GM_xmlhttpRequest fetch or return incomplete HTML, resulting in partial previews or "Could not load preview" messages. The tool uses favicon from Google's service, which may not display for all domains. Content snippets are limited to 160 characters for readability.