Pages you bookmark get moved, paywalled or deleted. DefyRot is a Chrome extension that saves a clean, offline copy of each one as Markdown, so when a link dies, your copy opens instead.
Free for 50 pages · No account needed · Works offline
Link rot: how fast web pages disappear
38%
of the pages that were online in 2013 can no longer be reached. A quarter of everything published from 2013 to 2023 is gone too.
- 54%of Wikipedia pages cite at least one source that no longer exists.
- 23%of news pages contain at least one broken link.
- 21%of government pages do as well.
Save it once. Read it forever.
First, click the icon or press Ctrl+Shift+S. The page becomes clean Markdown.
Then it lives in your browser: a few kilobytes, offline, on your machine.
When the link dies (404, 410 or a dead domain), DefyRot opens your copy. If the site is only down, it asks first.
See it work in 86 seconds.
The real extension, start to finish. Jump straight to the part you care about.
Opens with no internet.
Snapshots load straight from your browser’s own storage. No spinner, no server, no account, no connection.
mise use node@22.11.0
Run it once on a fresh laptop and you get the same compiler, the same package manager and the same test runner as everyone else on the team.
When something breaks, roll the pin back, not the project.No pop-ups. No paywall.
When a cookie wall or newsletter box covers the page, Clean Capture saves just the article underneath. Fifteen a month on Free.
Only you can read it.
Pro sync encrypts every page in your browser with a key from your own passphrase. We store ciphertext and nothing else.
U2FsdGVkX19vK3p8QmTq0rWb7yN2hJc4LxZs9fEk1aVgPu6dHoRi3nMt8wKe5BlQy0SjAvDcXf7Ug2Nh4ZrTm9pYk6GsW1oIu3EqJb8VnCx5Ld0QwHy2Rk7FtMe4Pz9Ja1Sv6Xn3Gc8Bo5Ui2Wr7Kh0Yl4Tq9Me6Da3Zf1Np8Vs5Hj2Cx7Ob0Gk4Lw9Ru6Ey3Ti1Pm8Yours to take.
Export the whole vault as Markdown files plus an offline copy that opens in any browser. Even if you stop paying.
Everything you kept.
Search titles on Free, or every word on every page with Pro, which also checks your links in the background and flags the dead ones.
Try it: search the sample vault, or open any page to read it.
Reproducible dev environments
Pin every tool to an exact version, commit the lockfile, and let one command rebuild the whole setup on any machine.
The original guide went offline in March. This copy was saved in February, so every step still reads exactly as it did.
Saved copy · original still liveAPI rate limiting, explained
A token bucket refills at a fixed rate and lets short bursts through. A sliding window is stricter and easier to reason about.
Whichever you choose, return a Retry-After header so well-behaved clients back off on their own.
Saved copy · original still liveWhy your cache keys drift
Two services that build the same cache key in slightly different ways will miss each other forever, and nothing errors.
Build keys in one shared function, include a version number, and log the key on every cache miss.
Original is gone · reading your copyNotes on content-addressed storage
Name each blob by the hash of its bytes and duplicates disappear by themselves: the same content always lands at the same address.
It is the same idea behind git objects, and behind most build caches that never go stale.
Saved copy · original still liveHow the web forgets
A decade after publication, more than a third of pages can no longer be reached. The rest often move or lose the parts that made them useful.
Keeping your own copy is the only fix that does not depend on someone else.
Saved copy · original still liveModern CSS layout techniques
Grid for the page, flexbox for the rows inside it, and container queries for components that live in more than one place.
Most layout bugs disappear once each element knows which of the three it belongs to.
Built for code. Kept in versions.
GitHub, Stack Overflow and docs save by their structure: an issue with every comment, the accepted answer, parameter tables.
Save a page again and DefyRot keeps the earlier version when the text changed, so the docs you relied on stay there after they change.
Compare any two to see what was added and removed, then open or download the old one.
Pro is $29 for your first year.
Then $39 a year, cancel anytime. If Pro lapses, nothing is deleted: every page stays readable and exportable.
Free
$0 forever
- 50 bookmarks
- 15 Clean Captures a month
- Title search
- Offline vault in your browser
Pro
$29 first year, then $39
- Unlimited bookmarks and Clean Captures
- Full-text search
- Export the vault as a ZIP
- Encrypted sync across devices
- Background dead-link checks
Lifetime
$89 once
- Everything in Pro
- No renewals, ever
- Every future Pro feature
- First 500 people only
Over 3 years, Lifetime saves you $18.
Asked before installing.
Something else? Write to support@defyrot.com. A person answers, usually within a day.
What is DefyRot?
DefyRot is a Chrome extension that saves a clean, readable copy of any web page you bookmark, as Markdown, inside your browser. The copy opens with no internet, can be searched, and opens automatically when the original link breaks with a 404, 410 or a dead domain (if the site is only down, it asks first). It is free for 50 pages; Pro adds unlimited pages, full-text search, encrypted sync and export.
How is DefyRot different from the Wayback Machine or SingleFile?
The Wayback Machine keeps public copies of pages on its servers, which is ideal for citing. SingleFile saves an exact HTML copy of one page to your Downloads folder. DefyRot keeps a private, readable copy of every page you save in one searchable vault in your browser, and opens it for you when the original link dies. They work well together. More in the best extensions to save web pages.
What does DefyRot save from GitHub, Stack Overflow and documentation?
It reads those pages by their structure instead of as an article. A GitHub issue or pull request keeps its title, state, labels, the opening post and every comment with its author. A Stack Overflow question keeps the question, the accepted answer and the best-voted others, with scores and tags. Documentation keeps the whole docs area: headings, signatures, parameter tables, examples and warnings, without the sidebar. Code blocks keep their language.
Does DefyRot keep older versions of a page?
Yes. Save a page again and, if its text changed in a way that matters (dates, view counts and other noise are ignored), the earlier version is kept instead of overwritten. Each saved page shows its versions; open any of them, compare it with the current copy to see what was added and removed, or download it as Markdown. Versions are kept on your device, on every plan.
What is link rot?
Link rot is what happens when a link stops leading to the page it used to: the page is deleted, moved, put behind a paywall or rewritten. Pew Research found that 38% of the pages online in 2013 can no longer be reached. DefyRot keeps your own copy of every page you save, so a dead link never costs you the page. More in What is link rot?
How do I save a web page offline in Chrome?
Install DefyRot, open the page and press Ctrl+Shift+S, or click the DefyRot icon in the toolbar. DefyRot saves the readable text, headings, code and first three images as Markdown, inside your browser. The copy opens with no internet, and it opens automatically if the original link later breaks. Other ways: how to save a web page offline.
Is DefyRot a good Pocket alternative?
Yes, if you used Pocket to keep articles for later. Mozilla shut Pocket down in July 2025. DefyRot keeps each saved page as a clean Markdown copy in your own browser rather than on our server, opens it with no internet, and on Pro exports the whole vault as a ZIP whenever you like. More in the best Pocket alternatives.
Where are my snapshots stored?
In a local database inside your browser, on the machine that saved them. Nothing leaves your device unless you turn on encrypted sync with Pro.
What exactly does DefyRot save?
The readable content of the page — headings, paragraphs, lists and code blocks — converted to Markdown, plus the first three images compressed to WebP. Later images stay as links to the original, and scripts and layout are not kept, so a snapshot stays small.
What happens when I reach 50 bookmarks on Free?
New saves are blocked until you upgrade or delete something. Everything already saved stays readable and keeps recovering dead links. Free also includes 15 Clean Captures a month for reading past paywalls and pop-ups.
What does encrypted cloud sync actually mean?
Snapshots are encrypted in your browser before upload, using a key derived from a sync passphrase you choose — separate from your account password, and never sent to us. DefyRot stores the resulting ciphertext and has no way to decrypt it. That also means nobody can reset the passphrase for you: forget it and the synced copies are unreadable, though the snapshots already on your machines are unaffected.
What happens if my Pro subscription ends?
Nothing is deleted. Every bookmark stays readable, you can still export the whole vault, and you can still restore your synced vault on a new device. Uploading new changes stops, search goes back to titles, and saving is paused while you hold more than 50 bookmarks.
Why does the extension have no sign-in?
One account, one place to manage it. You sign in on this site and the extension in the same browser is connected to your account automatically, with a session of its own. It also means the extension never asks for a password, so a lookalike popup has nothing to imitate.
Which browsers are supported?
Chrome, and Chromium browsers that accept Manifest V3 extensions. Firefox and Safari are not supported yet.
Links will die. Keep the page.
Install DefyRot and the next page you save is safe, offline, from that moment on.