Homestar Runner's 404 page remains the best on the Internet.
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Photo: Mike's Free GIFs, which is still hanging around
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I reached out to Mozilla, whose Firefox browser features a third-party Wayback Machine add-on, to see if building an automated link fixer into Firefox was on the table. As of now, it's not. "Mozilla has no plans to develop an automated dead link checking system, but there are numerous Firefox add-ons already available that provide similar functionality to Firefox users who are interested in it," a spokesman said in an email.For now, the onus remains on users and webmasters (when was the last time you used that term?) to be more proactive about keeping links alive. Integrating an automated caching and link-fixing system into a browser is a tall order, and many big sites (including Motherboard) have combated the problem by instead having 404 pages redirect to the homepage, which at least doesn't leave users at a dead end.In the meantime, the Internet Archive is working with Wikipedia, Wordpress, and other major sites to make sure they stay online. (I'm glad to know that even if the reggaehorn.com URL lapses, the site will live on in Wordpress form.) While that certainly covers a vast portion of the web, there's a more existential question that must be asked: What happens if the Internet Archive disappears?In a 2005 paper published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research looking at the efficacy of WebCite, a system designed to cache citations for online research journals, the authors address that very question. The answer, Gunther Eysenbach and Mathieu Trudel write, lies in making the system as open as possible, so anyone can help with maintenance or host their own backup, much like the Pirate Bay copies that float around. Beyond that, Eysenbach and Trudel suggest finding institutional backers who can take over the entire project if need be; eventually, they write, it will be come so intrinsic to publishing that publishers will make sure it lives on. So far, it has.As will the Internet Archive, at least for the foreseeable future. But as Eysenbach and Trudel point out, a permanent archival system requires support across the board, not just the admirable efforts of major internet non-profits. And until a standardized, automated internet-wide archival system gets developed—assuming that's even possible—lapsed hosting fees, content migration, and site redesigns will continue to knock links offline.@derektmeadThe answer lies in making a link rot-fighting system as open as possible, so anyone can help with maintenance or host their own backup.