slayeroffice - web experiments gone horribly awry

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Hotmail Link Decrapulator Favelet

  • Current Version: 1.1
  • Last Revision: 10.11.04
  • Language: Javascript
  • Requires: MSIE6, Mozilla, Firefox, Netsape 7, Opera 7

A friend of mine uses Hotmail for a secondary email account, and today approached me with a favor to ask.

I've never used Hotmail before, but it apparently has a particulary annoying feature where it mutilates any links it finds in an email so that when you click on them they open in a new window contained within a frameset. The top frame contains the MSN logo, along with the terribly important message "You are visiting a site outside of Hotmail. To return to Hotmail, close this browser window".

My friend rightfully hates this and asked if I could write a favelet that would stop Hotmail from doing it. Never one to say no, I've obliged by providing the Hotmail Link Decrapulator Favelet.

All it does is loop over document.links, checking them for the "_action=" argument in the urls and replacing the link's href attribute with the value of that argument, thus effectively stripping out all the garbage in the link and allowing you to view your page in peace. Of course, if Hotmail ever changes the format of those links, this will stop working.

Until that day, this should do the trick. If you're a Hotmail user, you can right click the link above and select "Boomark This Link" or "Add to Favorites" depending on your browser of choice.

Version 1.1 (10.11.2004)
  • Hotmail seems to be randomly switching between the old method of crapulating links and a new javascript: url based method. This update addresses that.
Version 1.0 (03.31.2004)
  • Original Release.