LinkRouter

A lightweight portable Windows app that routes links to specific applications based on regex rules.

Windows lets you choose a program to handle specific protocols, but there is no way to choose an app based on link contents. This app aims to fill that gap and suits power users who want total control over how links open on their machine.

• ✅ Open https-links to Steam, Discord, Spotify, Yandex Music etc in their native apps
• ✅ Route work domains to one browser, personal sites to another, and sensitive links to private/incognito mode
• ✅ Handle mailto: or ssh:// links from different companies with different apps or command-line arguments
• ✅ Add custom regex rules for any app and any protocol
• ✅ Use regex capture groups to reformat URLs before launching (e.g., extract host, user, path)
• ✅ All unhandled links fall back to your default browser - no broken workflows

Key features:

• ✅ Zero telemetry, zero network access
• ✅ Portable (single .exe) or installer with GUI config editor
• ✅ Companion browser extension for Chrome, Edge, Opera (side-loadable) and Firefox.
• ✅ Fire-and-forget: launches target app and exits — no background processes, no additional memory or cpu usage

Use it in two ways:

• System: Set as default handler for HTTP/HTTPS or any other protocol to catch links from Word, PDF readers, messengers, etc.
• Browser: Use the extension to send links from inside your browser

Warning

There are some false-positives on VirusTotal for this program: 4 out of 72 AVs mark this file suspicious. We can do nothing about it at the moment without sacrificing functionality. If the project lives we will try code signing and contacting AV vendors.

🚀 Quick Start

Installer (recommended)

1. Download LinkRouter-Installer.exe and follow the instructions
2. Use GUI editor to create/edit rules. See configuration section to get you started.

Portable/custom

1. Download linkrouter.exe
2. Place linkrouter.exe where you want and run it by double-clicking.
3. Select "Yes" in dialog to register the app in the system.
4. Windows Settings → Apps → Default apps dialog should pop-up automatically. If not press Win+I and start typing "default".
5. optionally select LinkRouter as the default handler for protocols you want it to handle. linkrouter-ext protocol is created by default and is mandatory for browser-extension to work.
6. optionally, install the browser extension from mozilla addons or add it manually. Extensions are available on Releases page.
7. Edit the config by double-clicking linkrouter.exe again. Or copy linkrouter-gui.exe to the same folder as linkrouter.exe and launch it.

Note

Additional right-click menu entries are available on linkrouter.exe for you convenience after registration (may be hidden inside "show more options"):

• Register LinkRouter (or re-register)
• Unregister LinkRouter
• Edit LinkRouter config
• Help with LinkRouter

💻 Command line usage

linkrouter.exe
  no parameters - asks to register if not registered. If registered - runs --edit
  --register - register app in system (also available via right-click menu)
  --unregister - unregister app in system (also available via right-click menu)
  --edit - open linkrouter.json in global.defaultConfigEditor (also available via right-click menu)
  --help - open the online README.md from this repo in global.fallbackBrowserPath (also available via right-click menu)
  --version - show dialog window with version number
  any parameter not starting with -- is treated as a link and is matched against Rule-list or opened in global.fallbackBrowserPath

⚙️ Configuration

GUI editor

For user convenience we developed a GUI config editor which can create/edit/search rules, validate regex syntax and indicate regex-matching on the fly AND it includes interactive mode - when no matching rule is found it opens a rule-creation dialog with the regex and test URL pre-filled. Search field searches in program, arguments and regex fields, and also checks search string against regexes, so you can easily find a matching rule by entering URL there. All actions are saved automatically.
⌨️ Hotkeys:

• Ctrl+Z/Ctrl+Y → undo/redo
  
• Ctrl+F,Ctrl+L,/ → focus search field
  
• Ctrl+S in main window → save config as
  
• Ctrl+S/Ctrl+ENTER in edit/settings dialog → save config, close dialog
  
• Ctrl+O → open Test URL in browser. useful in interactive mode
  
• ARROWS → navigate rules
  
• ENTER → edit selected rule
  
• DELETE → delete selected rule
  

Basic info

The app auto-creates linkrouter.json next to executable on its first launch and tries to detect your current default browser to use as the fallback one. If it fails, it tries to guess one from a list of known popular browsers locations. When loading config, LinkRouter checks:

• %LOCALAPPDATA%\LinkRouter\linkrouter.json
• linkrouter.json in the same folder as the executable When creating a new config, it tries to create it next to the executable first. If that fails, it falls back to %LOCALAPPDATA%\LinkRouter\linkrouter.json.

Every link passed to LinkRouter is tested against the rules in order. The first matching rule wins.

• regex – Golang-flavored regular expression
• program – full path to the target executable. environment variables are supported. If only a filename is provided, it is resolved via PATH.
• arguments – command-line arguments; {URL} is replaced with the original link, $1, $2… are replaced with capture-group contents.

Links that do not match any rule are passed to global.fallbackBrowserPath with global.fallbackBrowserArgs as arguments.

You can handle any protocol (mailto, ssh, steam, spotify, etc.). Just add the protocol to global.supportedProtocols and re-run --register.
You can set global.logPath to enable logging. Path may be absolute or relative. Leave empty to disable (default). It is very helpful when composing new rules without GUI editor, since you can see captured groups, arguments and resulting commandline.
In global.defaultConfigEditor parameter you can specify path to your preferred text-editor. It will be used to open linkrouter.json when double-clicking linkrouter.exe or when selecting Edit LinkRouter config in right-click menu of executable (may be hidden inside "show more options"). If empty - an attempt to find any known text-editor in PATH is made.

Here's a sample config to get the idea. Notice, that all backslashes \ have to be escaped like this \\ in JSON. GUI config editor does it automatically under the hood.

{
  "global": {
    "fallbackBrowserPath": "C:\\Program Files\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe",
    "fallbackBrowserArgs": "{URL}",
    "defaultConfigEditor": "C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft VS Code\\Code.exe",
    "logPath": "linkrouter.log",
    "supportedProtocols": [
      "http",
      "https",
      "ssh",
      "mailto"
    ]
  },
  "rules": [
     {
      "regex": "https://store\\.steampowered\\.com.*",
      "program": "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\steam.exe",
      "arguments": "steam://openurl/{URL}"
    },
    {
      "regex": "ssh://(.*@company1\\.com).*",
      "program": "C:\\Windows\\System32\\wsl.exe",
      "arguments": "ssh $1"
    },
    {
      "regex": "ssh://(.*)/",
      "program": "C:\\Windows\\System32\\OpenSSH\\ssh.exe",
      "arguments": "-i .ssh/id_rsa_personal user2@$1"
    },
    {
      "regex": "mailto:(.*@company1\\.com)",
      "program": "C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\root\\Office16\\OUTLOOK.EXE",
      "arguments": "/c ipm.note /m $1"
    },
    {
      "regex": "mailto:(.*)",
      "program": "C:\\Program Files\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe",
      "arguments": "https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&to=$1"
    }
  ]
}

this config will make LinkRouter:

• turn links like https://store.steampowered.com/.... into steam://openurl/https://store.steampowered.com/.... and open them in Steam.
• open links like ssh://.*.company1.com in wsl via ssh
• open all other links like ssh://.* in windows openssh using key id_rsa_personal
• open links like mailto:.*@company1.com by opening "New email" window in outlook with prefilled recipient field.
• open all other links like mailto:.* in gmail in chrome.
• links that don't match any rule will be opened in chrome browser.
• write log to linkrouter.log next to linkrouter.exe
• opens config for editing in VS Code

Tip: you can specify explorer.exe in program and pass link to it, if you want Windows to handle that link. e.g. passing steam:// link to explorer will open Steam, since Steam is registered in Windows as the default handler for that protocol.
It is usually a good idea to quote resulting url in arguments to prevent breakage of complex links (e.g. with spaces).

Note

While LinkRouter works just fine without running as an administrator, if a program from config is being run as admin, LinkRouter can't launch such program unless also launched with admin privileges. In this case go to linkrouter.exe Properties - Compatibility and check Run this program as an administrator.

Check more example rules in linkrouter.example.json in root of this repo. Maybe the app you need is already there. Send us your rule ideas — we’ll add them to the examples!

Note

Figuring out the correct command-line arguments/switches for third-party programs is entirely the user’s responsibility. LinkRouter only launches whatever you tell it to launch. For testing regexes we recommend enabling logging via global.logPath or using linkrouter-gui.exe or this wonderful website (choose the Golang flavor).

🔒 Privacy & Security

• Zero network access
• No telemetry, no analytics, no crash reporting
• No data collection of any kind
• Fully open-source
• Single static portable binary or user-friendly installer

Warning

Because LinkRouter can execute arbitrary programs, only use rules you trust. Never download and run someone else’s linkrouter.json blindly — it could contain malicious commands. LinkRouter doesn't launch any programs except for those, specified in your config.

📦 Download

See the Releases page for the latest linkrouter.exe.

🛠️ Build from source

For building you'll need to install Go and MinGW-w64 (needed for gcc compiler).

# clone
git clone https://github.com/kolbasky/LinkRouter.git
cd LinkRouter

# this steps are optional, to embed icon, manifest and metadata.
# note, that recursive launch protection will not work without proper metadata.
go install github.com/josephspurrier/goversioninfo/cmd/goversioninfo@latest
go generate .\cmd\linkrouter\

# build
go build -ldflags="-H windowsgui -s -w" -trimpath -o bin\ .\cmd\linkrouter\