[Feature Request] Resolve Microsoft Outlook/Teams "safe links" and handle the target link according to configuration

[bllngr]

My workplace has Microsoft "Safe Links" enabled in Outlook and Teams and probably other Microsoft applications. This means that every link opened from these applications is rewritten to some Microsoft page, which verifies the URL and then redirects to it.

This completely breaks the idea of BrowseRouter, since there's essentially only a few target URLs. It would be really great if BrowseRouter detected those URLs, extracted the target URL from them, and then opened the target URL directly according to configuration.

These are the patterns I've found:

• https://statics.teams.cdn.office.net/evergreen-assets/safelinks/1/atp-safelinks.html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F[...]
• https://.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F[...]

It seems like parsing the query string and opening the value of the url instead of the passed link should be enough.

[nref]

Thanks @bllngr for the feature request. I also use Teams at work and have the same problem. I'll look into adding an option to parse out SafeLinks URLs.

[nref]

I'm happy to share that this feature is implemented as Filters in Linklever.

Filters guide

I'll backport it to BrowserRouter as soon as I can.

[clayissimo]

I'm happy to share that this feature is implemented as Filters in Linklever.

Filters guide

I'll backport it to BrowserRouter as soon as I can.

Hi @nref - do you have any ETA for backporting that feature?

[nref]

@clayissimo Thanks for asking. That helps me gauge interest. Since there are at least two who are interested, I'll prioritize it first. Since BR competes with family time, fitness goals, and my side business, it's hard to predict when I'll get to it. I could get to it tomorrow or in four weeks.

I do accept PRs!

[clayissimo]

@clayissimo Thanks for asking. That helps me gauge interest. Since there are at least two who are interested, I'll prioritize it first. Since BR competes with family time, fitness goals, and my side business, it's hard to predict when I'll get to it. I could get to it tomorrow or in four weeks.

I do accept PRs!

Thanks for the quick reply :) Sure, I understand that all this topics have a higher priority. Appreciate, that you're looking into it.

About the PR - I am no familiar with c# :-( so I couldn't provide any code. Plus I assume you'll be much much faster by backporting from your Linklever code :)

[nref]

Completed in #75 and released in https://github.com/nref/BrowseRouter/releases/tag/0.15.0 .

Let me know how it's working for you!

[clayissimo]

Completed in #75 and released in https://github.com/nref/BrowseRouter/releases/tag/0.15.0 .

Let me know how it's working for you!

@nref - thanks for adding the feature. It is not working unfortunately.
First of all, the current zip archive does not contain a filters.json file. However, I downloaded it from the repo:

  [
  {
    "name": "Remove urchin tracking",
    "find": "(.*)[&?]utm_source=[^&]+.*",
    "replace": "$1",
    "priority": 1
  },
  {
    "name": "Bypass Teamss Safelinks",
    "find": ".*teams\\.cdn\\.office\\.net.*url=([^&]+).*",
    "replace": "$1",
    "priority": 2
  },
  {
    "name": "Bypass Outlook URL Protection",
    "find": ".*safelinks.protection.outlook.com.*url=([^&]+).*",
    "replace": "$1",
    "priority": 3
  }
]

It doesn't do anything. :-( any logs you need?

[nref]

Ok, thanks. Can you confirm you downloaded 0.15.2? I fixed some things since 0.15.0.

[clayissimo]

Ok, thanks. Can you confirm you downloaded 0.15.2? I fixed some things since 0.15.0.

Confirmed. I have tried it with 0.15.2. Anything I can help to narrow down the issue?

[nref]

Thanks for the kind offer!

Can you see if changing the [ ] to { } in your filters.json file helps?

I will make sure future releases have a filters.json (I had intended that 0.15.2 did)

[nref]

Nevermind about that suggestion to replace [ ] with { } .

Can you help me understand something. You wrote "the current zip archive does not contain a filters.json" but 0.15.2 does include filters.json. Don't wish to contradict you but did you really try 0.15.2?

If so, next step: would you mind to upload a log file? You'll find them in %localappdata%/BrowseRouter. Thanks!

[clayissimo]

@nref - sorry, my bad. The filter.json file was in the archive! I mistakenly extracted only the .exe file. So to confirm, yes, it is 0.15.2

Can I PM you the logfile?

[nref]

No worries. Thanks for confirming.

Feel free to send me a message or email - doug@endurabyte.com