When you first install Indie Wiki Buddy, a welcome page walks you through the settings most people want to set up, including which search engines to turn on. You can change any of these later.

Once installed, you can access the extension's settings popup via the in the top bar, at the top right.
If you don't see the icon, it may be in the extension dropdown, which is a jigsaw icon in both Firefox and Chrome.

Inside this popup, you can toggle the extension on and off via the power button at the top right.

The first set of options let you quickly set the default behavior for all wikis. First, you can select what happens when you visit Fandom, Fextralife, and Neoseeker wikis in which an independent wiki is available.

• Disable: You will be neither notified of nor redirected to the independent counterpart. You will still be directed to BreezeWiki if it is turned on.
• Alert (default): Have a display banner at the top notifying you that an independent wiki is available. This will appear on both Fandom and BreezeWiki pages.
• Redirect: Be automatically redirected to the independent counterpart.

The second option is for what happens in search engines when you get results for Fandom, Fextralife, and Neoseeker wikis that have independent counterparts.

• Disable: Search engine results are not affected.
• Replace (default): The original non-indie result is disabled, and a button is injected above to take you to the independent wiki.
• Hide: Results are hidden in search engines. A banner will be shown near the top of the page to inform you, and allow you to re-reveal the hidden results.

Only google.com is on by default. To filter results on other search engines, you will need to turn them on. Your browser will ask you to grant access to each one. These choices are saved per device.

Below that are several global options:

• 🔔 Desktop notifications when redirected to an indie wiki or BreezeWiki
  When this option is enabled, you will receive a desktop notification whenever you are automatically redirected to either an indie wiki or BreezeWiki. This is on by default.
  
  If you aren't getting notifications when this is enabled, check your operating system's notification settings to ensure that your browser is allowed to send notifications.


• 🌐 Redirect non-English Fandom/Fextralife wikis to independent English wikis when no same-language wiki exists
  By default, Indie Wiki Buddy will keep users within the same language (e.g. only redirecting Spanish Fandom wikis to Spanish indie wikis). However, multilingual speakers may want to also use the many independent English wikis that are available. Enabling this option will redirect from non-English Fandom/Fextralife wikis to independent English wikis when one isn't available in the same language.


• 🌬️ Use BreezeWiki alternative frontend on Fandom
  This option will render Fandom wikis through BreezeWiki, an external service that removes clutter, simplifies the page, and removes ads. Occasionally, BreezeWiki or one of its mirrors may go down; when this happens, you can simply switch to another working instance. The list of available mirrors updates on its own, and your browser will ask you to grant access when you pick a mirror other than breezewiki.com.

At the bottom of the settings popup, you can click "View All Settings" to open a full settings page where you can configure your settings per-wiki.

We're always looking for more wikis to add to the extension!

Here are the criteria:

• The wiki should be editable by the public (that's what makes a wiki a wiki!)
• The destination wiki should be independent, meaning that decision-making and control of the wiki largely rests with the wiki's staff and volunteer editing community.
  • Factors include editorial independence, the editorbase's ability to request changes from their host, and any history of the host exerting decisions contrary to a wiki community's wishes.
  • Large hosts such as Miraheze and Wiki.gg may be considered less independent, but are included as they are community-friendly hosts, provide decent levels of control, and are popular destinations for forking wikis.
• The destination wiki should be of decent quality, ideally matching (or exceeding) the quality and size of the origin wiki. While we want to support all independent wikis, we also want extension users to be directed to wikis where they can find what they are looking for.
• Should be of general interest. Wikis about particularly niche subjects may be discluded.
• When there are multiple independent wikis on the same subject, we will usually point to the wiki that is most complete and prominent in the community.

If the independent wiki meets the criteria, you can submit it to be included in one of the following ways:

Large, corporate-run wiki farms have enabled hundreds of great wikis and communities. Unfortunately, these wiki farms can easily overshadow quality independent wikis, especially in search engine results. Independent wikis often have the benefit of greater self-determination and fewer ads, but are easily missed by users who aren't aware of their existence. This extension aims to help wiki readers discover and user quality, independent wikis.

Indie Wiki Buddy requests access to fandom.com, fextralife.com, and neoseeker.com. These are the wiki platforms that Indie Wiki Buddy will redirect from. It also requests access to breezewiki.com, in order to perform redirects and display redirect banners there.

Indie Wiki Buddy also requests access to google.com by default to filter search results. You can also turn on filtering in other search engines: Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, Brave, Startpage, Ecosia, Kagi, Qwant, Yandex, international Google sites, and custom search engines like SearXNG and Whoogle. You can also turn on BreezeWiki mirrors other than breezewiki.com, which will require granting access to those sites. If you enable another search engine or a BreezeWiki mirror, your browser will ask you to grant access to that site.

The full list of sites Indie Wiki Buddy requests access to by default is in the extension manifest.

Indie Wiki Buddy never transmits or stores data from these sites. Access is only used in order to perform redirects, display alert banners, and filter search results.

Check out the list of wikis!

Wiki redirect data lives in its own data repository on GitHub and is served from an API. The extension fetches the latest data every three hours, so new wikis work soon after they're added. You can turn this off in settings, in which case the extension only uses the wikis bundled with your installed version. New versions of the extension are periodically released with updated wikis.

The extension's primary audience is made up of readers looking for information, and pointing them towards wikis that might not have the information they're seeking isn't an ideal experience.

We will try to redirect to the most complete wiki, and will also consider factors such as what is most popular in the wiki subject's community.

Yes! Indie Wiki Buddy is open source. The extension code and the wiki data are both on GitHub.

Question not answered? Please get in touch using the contact info below!