Browser Bits
Link Preview icon

Link Preview

Hover over any link to instantly preview the page title, description, and thumbnail. No clicks needed.

Works on
Edge
Version
3.0.2
Add to Edge

Half the tabs you open get closed two seconds later: wrong article, paywall, or nothing like what the link text promised. Hold your cursor on a link for a moment and the title, description and thumbnail come to you instead.

Link Preview lets you hover over any link to instantly see the page title, description, and thumbnail — without clicking or leaving the current page.

No sign-ups, no settings, no extra clicks — just hover and preview.

Screenshots

What it does

  • Instant link preview on hover

    see title, description, and thumbnail at a glance

  • Open Graph metadata extraction

    pulls og:title, og:description, og:image for rich previews

  • Favicon display

    shows the linked site's icon for quick recognition

  • Smart positioning

    preview popup stays visible, never goes off-screen

  • Built-in caching

    previously hovered links load instantly

  • Lightweight

    fetches only minimal data, no full page loads

  • Researchers scanning articles before opening them

  • Students checking sources without losing their place

  • Social media users previewing shared links

  • Anyone browsing link-heavy pages like Reddit, Hacker News, or Wikipedia

  • Professionals vetting URLs before clicking

  • Anyone who wants to browse faster and smarter

When you'd reach for it

  • Reading a link-heavy feed

    On Hacker News, Reddit or a Wikipedia reference list, the link text rarely tells you what's behind it. Hovering brings up the target page's title, its first two lines of description and its thumbnail. You decide which three of thirty links are worth a tab.

  • Checking a shortened or unfamiliar URL

    A bare t.co or bit.ly link says nothing about its destination. The card shows the title and description of the page that link actually resolves to, so you learn what it is before committing a click. The domain line still shows the shortener, so read the title rather than the domain.

  • Chasing sources without losing your place

    When you are halfway through a long article, opening a citation means either a new tab to clean up later or losing your scroll position. Hovering keeps you where you are. The card follows the link, flipping above it when you're near the bottom of the window.

How to use it

  1. 01Install Link Preview — it works immediately, no setup needed
  2. 02Hover over any link on any webpage
  3. 03See the preview popup with title, description, and thumbnail
  4. 04Move your cursor away to dismiss the preview

Permissions & privacy

Single purpose

Link Preview has a single purpose: showing a preview popup when users hover over hyperlinks. When a user hovers over any link on any webpage, the extension fetches the linked page's Open Graph metadata (title, description, and thumbnail image) and displays it in a small popup near the cursor. The preview disappears when the cursor moves away. All fetching and rendering happens locally in the browser. No data is sent to any external server.

storageLink Preview uses the storage permission to cache the Open Graph metadata (title, description, thumbnail) of links the user has already hovered, using chrome.storage.local. This built-in cache lets previously previewed links render instantly on repeat hovers and avoids re-fetching the same page. Only fetched preview metadata and lightweight preferences are stored — all data is kept locally on the device and is never synced or transmitted to any external server.
<all_urls>Link Preview declares content script matches for "http://*/*" and "https://*/*" so that it can detect link hover events and display preview popups on every webpage. The extension must run on all sites because users expect link previews to work universally, regardless of which website they are browsing. The content scripts only listen for mouseover events on anchor elements and render a small preview card — they do not read, modify, or collect any page content. No data is transmitted externally.

All processing happens locally in your browser No data is sent to any server No analytics, no tracking, no accounts Minimal permissions: storage (caches previews so repeat hovers load instantly) and webNavigation (keeps previews accurate on single-page sites) Hover. Preview. Decide. No clicks wasted. It runs only the code shipped inside the package — no remote code is fetched.

Questions people ask

How do I preview a link in Chrome without opening it?

Hold the cursor over the link for about a third of a second and a preview card appears next to it. It shows the linked site's favicon and domain, the page title, a two-line description and a thumbnail when the page provides one. Move the cursor away and the card disappears; move it onto the card and the card stays.

Which links does it work on?

Any normal link on any http or https page — there is no site list to configure and nothing to switch on. It deliberately ignores mailto:, tel:, javascript: and same-page anchor links, since there is no page to preview. If a link points at a PDF or an image rather than an HTML page, the card shows only the domain.

Why is a preview blank or missing a title?

The card is built from the target page's own metadata: og:title or the title tag, og:description or the meta description, and og:image. Pages that need a login, block requests from other origins, or take more than five seconds to answer come back empty. Only the first 50KB of HTML is read, so metadata placed unusually far down the document can be missed.

What permissions does it need, and who sees the links I hover?

The manifest declares storage and host access to all sites, and content scripts run on every http and https page — that access is what lets hover detection work anywhere. Two honest details: fetching a preview means your browser requests that page directly, so the site can see the request in its logs; and the small site icon on the card is loaded from Google's public favicon service, which receives the link's domain.

Does it slow down pages or fetch every link at once?

It only fetches a page when you actually hover a link, and only after a short delay, so passing the cursor over a list of links doesn't trigger anything. Each result is kept in memory for the rest of the session, up to a couple hundred links, so hovering the same link again is instant. Each fetch reads at most the first 50KB and gives up after five seconds.

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