📅 Publishing Date Finder

A powerful cross-browser extension that detects publication dates from web pages using multiple detection methods with confidence indicators. Available for Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, and all Chromium-based browsers. Perfect for journalists, researchers, and anyone who needs to verify when content was published.

🆕 What's New in v1.2.5

Cross-Browser Support! - Now available for both Firefox and Chrome/Chromium browsers! Full Manifest V3 implementation for Chrome, self-hosted signed packages, and comprehensive documentation for both platforms. All the same powerful features across all browsers. See full changelog

Features

Smart Content Filtering 🎯

The extension intelligently focuses on the main article content, automatically filtering out dates from:

• Sidebars and related articles
• Navigation menus and headers
• Recommended/trending sections
• Comments and discussions
• Footers and widgets

This ensures you get the publication date of the actual article you're reading, not from surrounding content.

Detection Methods

1. Open Graph Metadata - og:published_time, og:article:published_time
2. JSON-LD Structured Data - Schema.org structured data
3. HTML Meta Tags - Dublin Core, custom meta tags
4. Microdata - itemprop attributes (with smart filtering)
5. HTML Time Elements - <time> tags with datetime attributes (with smart filtering)
6. URL Pattern Analysis - Dates embedded in URLs
7. Text Heuristics - Pattern matching in page content
8. Wayback Machine - Archive.org fallback for undated pages

Confidence Indicators

• 🟢 Green (High) - Structured metadata, highly reliable
• 🟡 Yellow (Medium) - Heuristic detection, probably correct
• 🔴 Red (Low) - Estimated or unreliable

Installation

Firefox

Option 1: Direct Installation (Recommended)

Download publishing_date_finder-1.2.5.xpi

Firefox will prompt to install. Click "Add" to install permanently.

Option 2: Firefox Add-ons Store

Coming soon to addons.mozilla.org

Chrome / Edge

Option 1: Chrome Web Store

Coming soon to Chrome Web Store

Option 2: Manual Installation (Self-Hosted)

1. Download publishing-date-finder-chrome-v1.2.5.zip
2. Extract the zip file
3. Open Chrome and go to chrome://extensions/
4. Enable "Developer mode" (toggle in top-right)
5. Click "Load unpacked"
6. Select the extracted build-chrome folder

Note: Manual installations show a developer mode warning but work perfectly.

Development/Testing

Firefox: Load temporary add-on from about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox

Chrome: Load unpacked from chrome://extensions/ with Developer mode enabled

Usage

1. Navigate to any web page (news article, blog post, etc.)
2. Click the Date Detective icon in your toolbar
3. View detected dates with confidence indicators:
   • Published - Original publication date
   • Modified - Last update date
   • Created - Content creation date
4. Click "Check Archive" to query the Wayback Machine for additional date information
5. Each date shows:
   • The date/time
   • How long ago it was
   • The source/method used to detect it
   • Confidence level (color-coded)

Development

Project Structure

date-detective-addon/
├── manifest.json              # Firefox manifest (Manifest v2)
├── manifest-chrome.json       # Chrome manifest (Manifest v3)
├── content.js                 # Content script (shared, browser-agnostic)
├── background.js              # Firefox background script (browser.*)
├── background-chrome.js       # Chrome service worker (chrome.*)
├── popup/
│   ├── popup.html            # Popup UI (shared)
│   ├── popup.css             # Popup styles (shared)
│   └── popup.js              # Firefox popup script (browser.*)
├── popup-chrome.js            # Chrome popup script (chrome.*)
├── icons/                     # Extension icons (shared)
├── build-chrome.sh            # Chrome build script
├── CHROME_SUBMISSION.md       # Chrome Web Store guide
├── BROWSER_GUIDE.md           # Cross-browser compatibility guide
└── README.md                  # This file

Shared vs Browser-Specific Files:

• Shared (95%): content.js, UI files, icons, documentation
• Firefox-specific: manifest.json, background.js, popup/popup.js
• Chrome-specific: manifest-chrome.json, background-chrome.js, popup-chrome.js

See BROWSER_GUIDE.md for technical details.

Testing

Test the addon on various websites:

• News sites (CNN, BBC, NYTimes)
• Blogs (Medium, WordPress sites)
• Technical documentation
• Social media posts
• Older websites without modern metadata

Debugging

1. Open the browser console (F12) to see any errors
2. Use about:debugging to inspect the addon
3. Check the background script logs for Wayback Machine API issues
4. Use the browser's network inspector to see API calls

Creating Distribution Packages

Firefox Package (Signed .xpi)

# Sign with Mozilla API credentials
web-ext sign \
  --api-key="YOUR_KEY" \
  --api-secret="YOUR_SECRET" \
  --channel=unlisted

# Output: web-ext-artifacts/publishing_date_finder-VERSION.xpi

Chrome Package (.zip)

# Build clean Chrome package
./build-chrome.sh

# Output: publishing-date-finder-chrome-VERSION.zip

See CHROME_SUBMISSION.md for Chrome Web Store submission guide.

Technical Details

Permissions

• activeTab - Access to the current tab's content
• https://archive.org/* - Access to Wayback Machine API

Browser Compatibility

Browser	Support	Manifest	Package Type
Firefox	✅ 57+	v2	Signed .xpi
Chrome	✅ 88+	v3	.zip
Edge	✅ 88+	v3	.zip
Brave	✅ Latest	v3	.zip
Opera	✅ Latest	v3	.zip

Technical differences: See BROWSER_GUIDE.md

Multi-Language Support

• 10 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Hindi, Arabic, Mandarin
• Date formats: DD.MM.YYYY, MM/DD/YYYY, DD-MM-YYYY, ISO 8601, YYYYMMDD
• Unicode support: CJK, Devanagari, Arabic, Cyrillic scripts

API Usage

• Wayback Machine API: https://archive.org/wayback/available
  • Free, no rate limits for reasonable use
  • Returns closest archived snapshot

Publishing to Stores

Firefox Add-ons

• Store: https://addons.mozilla.org/developers/
• Review: Minutes to hours (automated + manual)
• Cost: Free
• Status: Ready for submission (signed package available)

Chrome Web Store

• Store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/devconsole
• Review: 1-3 business days
• Cost: $5 one-time developer fee
• Guide: See CHROME_SUBMISSION.md

Future Enhancements

Possible improvements:

• Additional language support
• Machine learning for better heuristic detection
• Export dates to various formats (JSON, CSV)
• Historical view of multiple archived dates
• Integration with other archival services
• User preference for date format display
• Automatic updates via update manifest

Privacy

This extension respects your privacy. See PRIVACY.md for details.

License

MIT License - See LICENSE for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Please note that this project follows a Code of Conduct.

Troubleshooting

"Unable to analyze this page"

• Refresh the page and try again
• Check if the site blocks content scripts
• Some internal pages (about:, chrome:) cannot be analyzed

No dates found

• Try the Wayback Machine fallback
• Some pages genuinely don't have publication dates
• Check if JavaScript is disabled

Wayback Machine timeout

• The API might be slow or unavailable
• Try again later
• Some URLs might not be archived

Credits

Created with ❤️ for people who need to verify when content was published.