Developer build · Chrome extension (local install)

Detect malicious URLs directly from your browser.

MalURLX is an NLP and machine-learning based Chrome extension that helps you classify suspicious URLs as SAFE, DEFACEMENT, MALWARE, or PHISHING before you click.

⬇️ Download extension (ZIP) View developer-mode install steps

Note: This version is not yet on the Chrome Web Store. You will install it manually using Developer mode.

How to install the extension (Developer mode)

Because MalURLX is not yet published on the Chrome Web Store, you need to install it in Developer mode. This is simple and safe if you trust the code.

  1. Click “Download extension (ZIP)” above and save MalUrl.zip to your computer.
  2. Unzip the file so you get a folder called something like MalUrl.
  3. Open Google Chrome.
  4. In the address bar, go to chrome://extensions.
  5. Turn on Developer mode (top-right toggle).
  6. Click “Load unpacked”.
  7. Select the unzipped extension folder (the one that contains manifest.json).
  8. The MalURLX extension should now appear in your extensions list. Pin it from the toolbar to access it easily.

If you update the extension in the future, just remove the old version from chrome://extensions and load the new folder again.

How it works (high level)

The Chrome extension sends the URL you enter to a FastAPI backend developed by Santanu Mondal. The backend:

  1. Normalizes and parses the URL.
  2. Extracts a rich set of lexical and structural features.
  3. Feeds those features into a trained LightGBM model.
  4. Returns a label, such as SAFE or PHISHING, and (optionally) probability scores for each class.

Common trusted domains (e.g. google.com, wikipedia.org) may be whitelisted by the backend to avoid unnecessary warnings.