Mark All Visited Links In A Custom Color

Martin Brinkmann
Jan 31, 2012
Updated • May 26, 2017
Firefox, Firefox add-ons
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11

Visited is a free add-on for the Firefox web browser that enables you to override custom visited link colors on websites that use these modifications.

Visited links by default display in a different color than links that have not been visited. These different link colors act as visual indicators on websites, that make it clear on first sight whether you have opened a link on a page or not. This is especially useful on sites with dynamic listings, like Hacker News for instance or Reddit where contents change often throughout the day, but also for research to distinguish visited resources from unvisited.

One of the issues that you may experience on today's Internet are sites which change the visited link color via CSS so that it looks like to the normal link color on the site. This means that you cannot longer distinguish between links that you have visited already, and links that you have not visited.

Update: Firefox ships with an option to enforce the default link colors of the web browser. You need to load about:preferences#content in the browser's address bar and click on the Colors button there.

override visited links colors

There you find options to "override the colors specified by the page with your selections above". If you set that value to always, Firefox attempts to override whichever custom styling the page in questions use.

Visited for Firefox: change visited link colors

ghacks visited links

Visited is a Firefox add-on that paints all visited links in a color of your choosing. It overrides the defined link colors on all websites, so that visited links can be distinguished from unvisited ones.

The default link color has been set to gold, which should highlight visited links clearly on most pages, but not all. It is possible to change the color in the advanced Firefox preferences (and unfortunately not in an options menu via the about:addons page).

To change the link color, you need to enter about:config in the Firefox address bar to open the advanced configuration of the browser. Filter for the parameter extensions.visited.color.visited and change the value with a double-click. You can enter a color name or color code beginning with # in the value field. You can for instance change it to #800080 to turn the visited link color to purple.

 

The feature can be activated or deactivated with the shortcut code Alt-v for text links, or Alt-Shift-v for image links. It is unfortunately not possible to disable the painting of links on selected sites (it is for instance irritating in admin consoles and interfaces).

Firefox users can download and install the add-on at the official Mozilla Add-ons repository.

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Comments

  1. Dorian said on May 8, 2013 at 10:43 am
    Reply
  2. Ahmed said on February 1, 2012 at 9:30 pm
    Reply

    Install Stylish in the link below:
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stylish/

    Put in the following code:

    @-moz-document url-prefix(“http://”) {
    a:visited { color: #FF7E00 !important;}
    }

    In my case using the code above, all visited links now show up in amber.

    1. SFdude said on February 2, 2012 at 1:01 am
      Reply

      Ahmed,

      thanks for your “Stylish” solution, (above).

      how would you ALSO change
      the [ background color ] of the visited link,
      in your Stylish code?

      1. Ahmed said on February 2, 2012 at 2:35 am
        Reply

        Normally the css code is “background-color” but it doesn’t work probably for security reasons as a previous comment has pointed out.

    2. Martin Brinkmann said on February 1, 2012 at 10:09 pm
      Reply

      Thanks Ahmed for the tip.

  3. vasa1 said on February 1, 2012 at 4:59 am
    Reply

    Sorry for three-posting but it is possible to tweak the background color if done for both visited **and** unvisited links. The last link I gave makes that clear. I haven’t tested it myself. Maybe SF will oblige?

    1. SFdude said on February 2, 2012 at 1:27 am
      Reply

      Hi Vasa1,

      thanks for the article
      on the 456bereastreet.com site: goo.gl/2wXvj

      The author explains clearly
      why Mozilla has restricted using
      bkg. colors on “visited links”.
      Privacy, security, etc…makes sense.

      I tested his solution on FF 9.0.1,
      it works fine.

      But that is a “local” visited link color+bkg solution.
      ie: It only works (very well),
      only on the specific page,
      which includes the clever CSS on-board.

      The ideal would be to find a generic solution
      for bkg colors of visited links,
      for ANY page visited…on FF > v7.

  4. SFdude said on February 1, 2012 at 1:23 am
    Reply

    Here’s an alternative way,
    (w/o yet another extension…),
    to change the link color AND the [ background color ]
    of “visited links”:

    Windows Secrets Lounge Forum =
    http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/142610-Change-links-color-Google-Firefox
    – or –
    http://goo.gl/JuW73

    The importance of ALSO changing the [ background color ]
    of a visited link,
    is that you may not “see” the link in a page
    whose background color is close to the new link color,
    (ie: yellow link color on white page bkg…hard to see !).

    So, just changing the link color is not enough.
    You ALSO need to change a contrasting bkg. color,
    behind the visited link.

    Visit the thread above,
    it’s really useful !

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on February 1, 2012 at 9:27 am
      Reply

      Great find. I did not test the solution but it is always better to implement something natively instead of running an extension.

    2. vasa1 said on February 1, 2012 at 4:49 am
      Reply

      I visited the link suggested by SFdude. There, SF99 suggested that is is useful to change the bgcolor as well to account for pages with different bgcolors. SF99 could get that to work with an older version of Fx but not with newer versions.
      IMO, that’s because of a “security” consideration implemented in newer versions. The way a visited link can be styled is now restricted. Anyone interested can look at h t t p : / / dbaron.org / mozilla / visited-privacy

      1. vasa1 said on February 1, 2012 at 4:55 am
        Reply

        h t t p : / / w w w .456bereastreet.com / archive / 201112 /visited_links_can_only_be_differentiated_by_colour/ maybe more appropriate since it is recent.

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