BrokenBuster - Privacy-First Broken Link Checker

Tracking since Apr 1, 2026.

Changelog

• May 10, 2026
  description

  **The Ultimate Technical SEO Broken Link Checker for the Modern Web**
  
  Validate your website's internal link health and find dead links with BrokenBuster. Designed specifically for technical SEO auditing, developer documentation, and staging environments, BrokenBuster is the most reliable, privacy-first dead link scanner for Chromium.
  
  Unlike legacy extensions that freeze on massive pages or get blocked by modern bot protections, BrokenBuster handles the modern web safely from your browser—no backend proxies, no hidden data collection, and no false positives.
  
  **Standout Features for Technical SEO:**
  
  *   **Deep Anchor Fragment Validation**: Did you link to `page.html#pricing` but someone deleted the ID on the target page? BrokenBuster parses the target DOM to validate in-page anchor links—a critical SEO capability missing from standard checkers.
  *   **False Positive Bot-Wall Detection**: Built-in semantic fingerprinting for Cloudflare, Akamai, and Imperva. Stop wasting time manually verifying fake 403 HTTP errors when sites block basic crawling bots.
  *   **Privacy-First Local Engine**: Your staging site URLs and sensitive page content are never sent to a cloud backend. Every live check runs locally, making it the perfect bulk URL scanner for private portals.
  *   **Comprehensive Asset Scanning**: Go beyond standard URLs. We validate `<script src>` imports, CSS stylesheets, image assets, and standard `<a>` tags for holistic internal link health audits.
  *   **Advanced Filtering Controls**: Filter out `rel="nofollow"` links, isolate only external links, or globally ignore heavy social media domains with a single click.
  *   **Wayback Machine Restoration**: Instantly find archived snapshots of dead links with an integrated Wayback Machine CDX API lookup.
  *   **Professional HTML & CSV Exports**: Generate interactive, high-contrast standalone HTML reports or raw CSV data for client deliverables.
  
  **Who is this for?**
  *   **Technical SEO Specialists**: Conduct deep internal link health audits and detect hidden 404 errors across complex JS-heavy or gated web apps.
  *   **Technical Writers & Content Managers**: Validate thousands of in-page anchor links inside massive documentation hubs and ensure content continuity.
  *   **Web Developers**: A secure, fast bulk URL scanner for QA testing in private staging and pre-flight environments.
  
  Enjoy uncompromising local dead link scanning, MV3 compliance, and absolutely zero trackers. Keep your site usable, accessible, and ranking high with BrokenBuster.
  
  ---
  
  ## 2. Privacy & Data Disclosure
  
  ### Permission Justification (for reviewers)
  *   **`<all_urls>`**: Required to perform direct `fetch()` requests to external domains discovered on the page to verify their status.
  *   **`activeTab`**: Used to identify the current tab context and inject the link highlight styles and extraction script.
  *   **`sidePanel`**: Provides a persistent sidebar UI for reviewing results without hiding page content.
  *   **`storage`**: Essential for persisting local settings, ignore lists, and scan results between sessions.
  
  ### Data Use
  *   **User Data Collection**: None. 
  *   **Tracking**: None.
  *   **Sensitive Information**: BrokenBuster does not collect, store, or transmit any user-identifiable data or browsing history.
  
  ---
  
  ## 3. Help & Support
  *   **Support URL**: https://handancorp.com/support
  *   **Contact Email**: [email protected]
  *   **Website**: https://handancorp.com

  Privacy-first broken link checks for modern sites.
  
  BrokenBuster helps SEO teams, documentation teams, and developers find broken links on modern pages without sending URLs to a server. Scan the current page from your browser, catch dead URLs and missing #anchor targets, separate real failures from bot-protection false positives, and export a clean report when you are done.
  
  BrokenBuster is built for real-world page QA, not just basic 404 checks. It audits links and assets directly on the page you are reviewing, keeps progress visible in the side panel, and gives actionable status labels so your team can decide what to fix now versus what to re-verify.
  
  Why teams use BrokenBuster
  
  Missing #anchor detection: Find links like page.html#pricing where the page loads but the target anchor was removed or renamed.
  Bot-wall false-positive handling: Identify Cloudflare, Akamai, and Imperva-style protection responses so blocked checks are not confused with confirmed broken links.
  Local-first privacy: Link checks run from your browser. BrokenBuster does not send page URLs, staging links, or scan results to a backend.
  Side panel review: Keep scan results visible while you inspect the page and focus individual links.
  CSV and HTML export: Save a local report for QA notes, SEO audits, or client handoff.
  Page-aware result context: Understand where each link came from (navigation, main content, sidebar, footer) to prioritize fixes faster.
  Streaming scan progress: Results appear as checks complete so you can start triaging before the full scan finishes.
  Quick-start scan presets: Use SEO Audit, Docs Audit, or Staging QA presets to reduce setup time and focus on the right link scope.
  Per-link fix workflow: Open one result at a time, inspect reason details, copy replacements, and review archive snapshots.
  Local cache and ignore controls: Speed up repeat scans and suppress known false positives with exact/domain/regex rules.
  Keyboard-accessible workflow: Navigate and review results quickly without leaving your current page context.
  What BrokenBuster checks
  
  Standard page links (a[href])
  Image assets (img[src])
  Script assets (script[src])
  Stylesheet links (link[rel="stylesheet"])
  Status meanings you can trust
  
  Broken: The URL failed, timed out, or an expected #anchor target is missing.
  Redirect: The URL resolves, but forwards users to another destination.
  Bot blocked: A protection layer likely blocked the request, so it is not treated as a confirmed broken link.
  Slow: The URL responded, but performance was slower than the expected threshold.
  Best for
  
  Technical SEO audits: Check page-level link health, redirects, dead URLs, and assets.
  Documentation QA: Validate internal documentation links and in-page anchors before release.
  Private staging checks: Audit links on staging, preview, and internal pages without a hosted scanner.
  BrokenBuster is intentionally local-first. There are no accounts, no analytics, no backend link checks, and no hosted reports.
  
  Changelog (v1.5.0)
  Improved bot-wall classification to reduce false positives on healthy CDN-backed responses.
  Improved fragment (#anchor) validation for quoted, unquoted, encoded, and HTML-entity cases.
  Added clearer scan-state handling so restored results are labeled as Last scan.
  Improved report export table consistency (status/code columns aligned with data).
  Improved reviewer and security posture by removing unnecessary request-modification permission usage.
  Improved reliability by removing browser API dependency patterns that can cause compatibility edge cases.
  Continued UI onboarding improvements from Week 2 work:
  Preset-driven quick start (SEO, Docs, Staging)
  Inline status explanation helper
  Clearer side panel CTA

• May 10, 2026
  short_description

  Intelligent broken-link scanner. Privacy-first: all HTTP checks run in your browser.

  Find dead links, missing #anchors, and bot-wall false positives. Scans run locally in your browser.

• May 10, 2026
  name

  BrokenBuster

  BrokenBuster - Privacy-First Broken Link Checker

• May 10, 2026
  category

  productivity/developer

  productivity/tools

• May 10, 2026
  permissions

  activeTab, storage, alarms, contextMenus, clipboardWrite, declarativeNetRequestWithHostAccess, sidePanel

  activeTab, storage, alarms, contextMenus, clipboardWrite, sidePanel

• May 5, 2026
  description

  **Intelligent broken-link scanner. Privacy-first: all checks run locally in your browser. No data collection.**
  
  ### Detailed Description (Full Description)
  **Keep your website's user experience and SEO healthy with BrokenBuster, the most privacy-respecting link scanner for Chromium.**
  
  BrokenBuster is a professional-grade broken link checker built for speed, accuracy, and absolute privacy. Unlike other link scanners that proxy your requests through their own servers, BrokenBuster performs every "live check" directly from your browser. 
  
  **Key Features:**
  
  *   **Privacy-First Architecture**: Your page content and scan results are never sent to a BrokenBuster backend. All scans happen 100% locally on your device.
  *   **Visual Highlights**: Instantly see broken, redirected, slow, and bot-blocked links highlighted directly on the webpage with accessible status markers.
  *   **Smart Bot-Wall Detection**: Built-in fingerprinting for Cloudflare, Akamai, and Imperva ensures that protected pages are correctly identified, eliminating "fake" 403 errors.
  *   **Wayback Machine Integration**: Instantly find last-known good versions of dead links with one-click access to the Wayback Machine archive.
  *   **Advanced Controls**: Fine-tune your scan with adjustable concurrency (1–24 parallel checks), customizable timeouts, and TTL-based caching.
  *   **Professional Exports**: Download report summaries in CSV or standalone interactive HTML formats for SEO audits and client reporting.
  *   **Manage Ignore Lists**: Easily add domains, exact URLs, or regex patterns to skip during future scans.
  
  **Ideal For:**
  *   **SEO Audit Specialists**: Quickly audit page health without heavy crawler overhead or complex setups.
  *   **Content Managers**: Use our smart **link scanner** to ensure all references in your articles stay active.
  *   **Web Developers**: A reliable **broken link checker** for verifying status in staging and pre-flight environments.
  
  Built for the modern web (MV3). No account required. No trackers. Zero data collection. Reliable **dead link scanning** for a healthy website.
  
  ---
  
  ## 2. Privacy & Data Disclosure
  
  ### Permission Justification (for reviewers)
  *   **`<all_urls>`**: Required to perform direct `fetch()` requests to external domains discovered on the page to verify their status.
  *   **`activeTab`**: Used to identify the current tab context and inject the link highlight styles and extraction script.
  *   **`sidePanel`**: Provides a persistent sidebar UI for reviewing results without hiding page content.
  *   **`storage`**: Essential for persisting local settings, ignore lists, and scan results between sessions.
  
  ### Data Use
  *   **User Data Collection**: None. 
  *   **Tracking**: None.
  *   **Sensitive Information**: BrokenBuster does not collect, store, or transmit any user-identifiable data or browsing history.
  
  ---
  
  ## 3. Help & Support
  *   **Support URL**: https://handancorp.com/support
  *   **Contact Email**: [email protected]
  *   **Website**: https://handancorp.com

  **The Ultimate Technical SEO Broken Link Checker for the Modern Web**
  
  Validate your website's internal link health and find dead links with BrokenBuster. Designed specifically for technical SEO auditing, developer documentation, and staging environments, BrokenBuster is the most reliable, privacy-first dead link scanner for Chromium.
  
  Unlike legacy extensions that freeze on massive pages or get blocked by modern bot protections, BrokenBuster handles the modern web safely from your browser—no backend proxies, no hidden data collection, and no false positives.
  
  **Standout Features for Technical SEO:**
  
  *   **Deep Anchor Fragment Validation**: Did you link to `page.html#pricing` but someone deleted the ID on the target page? BrokenBuster parses the target DOM to validate in-page anchor links—a critical SEO capability missing from standard checkers.
  *   **False Positive Bot-Wall Detection**: Built-in semantic fingerprinting for Cloudflare, Akamai, and Imperva. Stop wasting time manually verifying fake 403 HTTP errors when sites block basic crawling bots.
  *   **Privacy-First Local Engine**: Your staging site URLs and sensitive page content are never sent to a cloud backend. Every live check runs locally, making it the perfect bulk URL scanner for private portals.
  *   **Comprehensive Asset Scanning**: Go beyond standard URLs. We validate `<script src>` imports, CSS stylesheets, image assets, and standard `<a>` tags for holistic internal link health audits.
  *   **Advanced Filtering Controls**: Filter out `rel="nofollow"` links, isolate only external links, or globally ignore heavy social media domains with a single click.
  *   **Wayback Machine Restoration**: Instantly find archived snapshots of dead links with an integrated Wayback Machine CDX API lookup.
  *   **Professional HTML & CSV Exports**: Generate interactive, high-contrast standalone HTML reports or raw CSV data for client deliverables.
  
  **Who is this for?**
  *   **Technical SEO Specialists**: Conduct deep internal link health audits and detect hidden 404 errors across complex JS-heavy or gated web apps.
  *   **Technical Writers & Content Managers**: Validate thousands of in-page anchor links inside massive documentation hubs and ensure content continuity.
  *   **Web Developers**: A secure, fast bulk URL scanner for QA testing in private staging and pre-flight environments.
  
  Enjoy uncompromising local dead link scanning, MV3 compliance, and absolutely zero trackers. Keep your site usable, accessible, and ranking high with BrokenBuster.
  
  ---
  
  ## 2. Privacy & Data Disclosure
  
  ### Permission Justification (for reviewers)
  *   **`<all_urls>`**: Required to perform direct `fetch()` requests to external domains discovered on the page to verify their status.
  *   **`activeTab`**: Used to identify the current tab context and inject the link highlight styles and extraction script.
  *   **`sidePanel`**: Provides a persistent sidebar UI for reviewing results without hiding page content.
  *   **`storage`**: Essential for persisting local settings, ignore lists, and scan results between sessions.
  
  ### Data Use
  *   **User Data Collection**: None. 
  *   **Tracking**: None.
  *   **Sensitive Information**: BrokenBuster does not collect, store, or transmit any user-identifiable data or browsing history.
  
  ---
  
  ## 3. Help & Support
  *   **Support URL**: https://handancorp.com/support
  *   **Contact Email**: [email protected]
  *   **Website**: https://handancorp.com

Permissions & access

Permissions

activeTabstoragealarmscontextMenusclipboardWritesidePanel

Host access

<all_urls>

Screenshots