How to Preview Links in Google Chrome?

In our earlier article, we have explained how to use the default link preview feature in iPhone. Unfortunately, link preview is not used much in desktop browsers like Google Chrome. If you are missing preview links in Google Chrome then here is how you can enable.

Preview Link Feature

On smartphones browsers like iPhone Safari, you can touch and hold the link to get the preview in a pop-up widget. This way of previewing link is useful in many situations to view the webpage without actually opening it. You can easily confirm the page is legitimate before clicking on the link. However, on desktop, the only option is to hover on a link and see the actual URL on the browser’s status bar.

Preview Links in Google Chrome Desktop

Google Chrome has vast range of extensions for any purposes. Fortunately, you have a Link-Preview extension for enabling preview link feature in Chrome.

Installing Link-Preview Chrome Extension

• Open Google Chrome browser and click on the “App” button in bookmarks bar. If you are not seeing “App” button, press “Control + Shift + B” in Windows and “Command + Shift + B” in Mac to open bookmarks bar to find the “App” button.

• Click “Web Store” icon and open Chrome Web Store.

• Search for “link preview” and find relevant extensions.

• Click on “Link-Preview” extension and then click on “Add to Chrome” button.

• Confirm installing the extension by clicking on “Add extension” button in the pop-up.

• After installing the extension, click on the puzzle icon next to address bar and select “Link-Preview” extension.

• You will be prompted to provide additional permissions for the extension to access website’s data that you visit on the browser. Click “Request Permission” button to proceed further.

• On the pop-up that appears, click on “Allow” to provide additional permissions.

Setting Up Link-Preview Extension

Now that you have installed the extension and provided sufficient permissions, open any webpage with hyperlinks. Activate the extension by clicking the puzzle icon and selecting Link-Preview extension. Hover your mouse over a hyperlink to see the preview widget appears in a pop-up window.

The extension offers few settings that you can use to customize the preview link feature. Click on the extension icon next to address bar to see the list of options.

• Show icon – this will show the favicon of the page you are viewing next to the applicable hyperlinks where the preview is available.
• Show icon only when mouse is over the link – you can view the favicon only on mouse hover. You should enable the first option to use this option.
• Show title (when mouse is over the link) – enable this option to show the title the linked page on mouse hover over hyperlinks.
• Show tooltip (when mouse is over the link) – show URL of the linked webpage as a tooltip on mouse hover over hyperlinks.
• Preview-Widget as Popup – enable this to view the preview widget appears in a nice pop-up.

You can check the example link in the extension shows live changes as you enable or disable the options. click on the “Reload to see changes” button to apply the changes to the page you are viewing. When viewing the link preview as a pop-up widget, you can click on the gear icon in the widget and disable “Preview-Widget as Popup” option.

Points When Using Link-Preview Extension

Remember the following points when using Link-Preview extensions:

• We have noticed this extension slows down the page.
• It does not show link preview for all hyperlinks available on the page.
• Non-English characters may look like junk in the link preview widget.

At this moment, there are no other extensions available in Chrome Web Store for this purpose. Therefore, you have to live with this extension if you really like to use preview links feature in Chrome browser.

Preview Links in Google Chrome Android App

Remember, Chrome extensions will only work in desktop browsers and will not work on Android or iOS Chrome app. However, Google introduced the preview link feature in Android which you can use in Chrome app as well.

• Open a webpage in Chrome and find a hyperlink on that page.
• Touch the link and hold till the time the context menu appears.
• Select “Preview Page” option from the menu.
• It will open a small preview window at the bottom.
• Swipe on it to open on top of the page you are viewing.
• You can either close the preview or open in a full page mode.  

Unlike iOS default link preview feature, you can actually scroll and read the content within preview window in Chrome. Unfortunately, there are no possibilities to use link preview option in iPhone Chrome app. It will only show limited context menu options when touching and holding a hyperlink. However, all default iOS apps from Apple supports preview link feature.