link-verify

A Manifest V3 browser extension and self-hosted Node.js backend that give a research team shared, real-time awareness of which links each member has visited — recoloring anchors live (unclicked / clicked-by-you / clicked-by-teammate) as teammates work. The technical core is a 685-line URL canonicalizer, shared between the content script and the API server and covered by its own 33-test suite, that strips 200+ tracking parameters and normalizes place identifiers so semantically identical URLs collapse to one canonical form; each is SHA-256 fingerprinted for fast lookup.

A standalone WebSocket server fans click, typing and read-receipt events out to every connected device with heartbeat dead-connection detection, per-user connection caps and flood protection, while the client runs its own exponential-backoff auto-reconnect. The 45-endpoint Express backend spans two datastores — MongoDB for users, clicks and chat (indexed collections, rate limiting) and a relational pool backing an image-verification workflow with client-side EXIF/GPS/copyright extraction and a visual matching tool.

The front end is a disciplined 74-module ES6 codebase (~17.4K lines) with a custom Rollup build, four-language localization and a self-hosted update channel, re-architected from a v1 monolith into single-responsibility modules and deployed for internal team use.