All dev work

Clever

Browser Extension

nmillrr

Role:

Developer

Date:

Aug 2025

Preview

Chrome Web Store

Building a browser extension to help students and researchers easily access library resources

As a student and research assistant, I found myself getting frustrated at the paywalls that I would face when I wanted to access an online article or database (apparently thanks to Ghislane Maxwell's father). There were workarounds like SciHub, library access, and others, but redirecting myself to a new platform just to bypass a paywall interrupted my workflow.

In the world of digital products and services, most users skip over the lengthy terms and conditions agreements (alternatively called 'EULA's, or end-user license agreements). These agreements may contain complex legal jargon, thousands of words, and other obstacles that make a thorough read-through unrealistic for the average user.

Termes delivers an accessible solution to this problem: a browser extension that helps users better understand what they are agreeing to. There are three major parts to Termes: a grading scale (inspired by ToS;DR), a highlight of any violation of rights, and a high-level summary of the terms.

I thought an automatic-redirect script or mechanism shouldn't be too hard to build. I would simply need to scrape the URLs that my school used to redirect students to a proxy-login of a given site, and match them to a corresponding list of URLs where a user might encounter a paywall, detected by a background script.

Clever was a solution that I came up with, and I even decided to start adding more schools than just my own. Users can select their university, and Clever will check against their school's library resources whenever they encounter a paywalled article or site to see if they have access. If they do, a small popup will appear, helping them easily redirect to a university proxy/login for that site.

This project is live, and you can actually add the extension to your Chrome browser [here]. If you're interested in the backend, the complete project files are on GitHub. Currently working on adding more schools to the list, and maybe even adding public libraries!