Creating a Manifest v3 URL redirect from directly a URL

December 13, 2024

The new StackOverflow homepage is annoying. I thought I’d quickly set up the browser to redirect to the /questions subpage instead. I wrote the script for it. However, I’ve noticed that when I specify the StackOverflow homepage directly, it keeps redirecting every request to the /questions subpage (e.g., profile, specific question, etc.) incorrectly.

[
  {
    "id": 1,
    "priority": 1,
    "action": {
      "type": "redirect",
      "redirect": {
        "url": "https://stackoverflow.com/questions"
      }
    },
    "condition": {
      "urlFilter": "https://stackoverflow.com",
      "resourceTypes": ["main_frame"]
    }
  }
]

Tests

https://stackoverflow.com         | redirected (OK)   |
https://stackoverflow.com/another | redirected (FAIL) | expected: not redirect

How can I formulate in Manifest v3 to redirect only https://stackoverflow.com?

>Solution :

You should be able to use

[
  {
    "id": 1,
    "priority": 1,
    "action": {
      "type": "redirect",
      "redirect": {
        "url": "https://stackoverflow.com/questions"
      }
    },
    "condition": {
      "urlFilter": "https://stackoverflow.com/|",
      "resourceTypes": ["main_frame"]
    }
  }
]

since a | dictates that no more characters may come after it.

See: chrome.declarativeNetRequest – URL filter syntax – Chrome Extension API