#HTTP Switchboard for Chromium

See Change log for latest changes.

A Chromium browser extension which let you white- or blacklist requests originating from within a web page according to their type and/or destination as per domain name.

##Installation

Available on Chrome web store (HTTP Switchboard), or you can install manually.

###IMPORTANT

Because of issue #35, it is best to disable javascript by default. To do so:

• Go to chrome/chromium Settings.
• You might need to click Show advanced settings.
• In Privacy section, click Content settings... button.
• In the Javascript section, click "Do not allow any site to run JavaScript".

HTTP Switchboard will continue to disable/enable javascript just as before, according to whether the hostname is black or whitelisted, except that now, since javascript is turned off by default, there is no opportunity for inline scripts to be executed before the asynchronous command (as per chromium API) to disable them takes effect.

Sadly, a side-effect of doing the above steps is that it may happen that inline scripts are not executed the first time you visit a site for which scripts are whitelisted. Forcing a reload of the page fix this.

The only way to resolve this annoyance is for chromium developers to come up with a solution.

##Documentation

HTTP Switchboard let you easily whitelist/blacklist net requests which originate from within a web page according to:

• domain names
  • in full or part
• type of requests
  • cookie
  • image
  • object
  • script
  • XMR (abbreviation for XMLHttpRequest)
  • frame
  • other

The goal of this extension is to make allowing or blocking of web sites, wholly of partly, as straightforward as possible, so as to not discourage those users who give up easily on good security and privacy habits.

The extension is also useful to see what the web page in your browser is doing (or trying to do) behind the scene.

The number which appear in the extension icon correspond to the total number of requests attempted (successfully or not depending on whether it was whitelisted/blacklisted) behind the scene.

Simply click on the appropriate entry in the matrix in order to whitelist, blacklist or graylist a component. Graylisting means the blocked or allowed status will be inherited from another entry in the matrix.

• Redish square = effectively blacklisted, i.e. requests are prevented from reaching their destination:
  • Dark red square: the specific domain name and/or type of request is specifically blacklisted.
  • Pale red square: the blacklist status in inherited because the entry is graylisted.
• Greenish square = effectively whitelisted, i.e. requests are allowed to reach their intended destination:
  • Bright green square = the specific domain name and/or type of request is specifically whitelisted.
  • Pale green square = the whitelist status in inherited because the entry is graylisted.

The top-left cell in the matrix represents the default global setting (the 'master switch'), which allows you to choose whether allowing or blocking everything is the default behavior.

Whether a graylisted cell in the matrix is effectively whitelisted/blacklisted depends on whether a cell with lower precedence is expressly whitelisted/blacklisted. The precedence order works this way, from higher to lower:

• Specific domain and specific type of request (i.e. 'cookie' @ 'edition.cnn.com')
• Domain names, which are subject to a another rule of precedence order within themselves:
  • ...
  • Subdomain names (i.e. 'ichef.bbc.co.uk')
  • Domain names (i.e. 'bbc.co.uk')
• Types of request (cells in the the top row)
• Master switch (the all cell in the top-left corner)

This extension is also useful if you wish to speed up your browsing, by blocking all requests for images as an example.

This is a very early draft, but it does the job. I intend to keep working on it until I am satisfied that it can be tagged as version 1.0.

##License

GPLv3.