# Date detective

> Detects publication dates using 8 methods with confidence scoring. Perfect for journalists, researchers, and fact-checkers.

Canonical page: [https://chrome-stats.com/d/date-detective](https://chrome-stats.com/d/date-detective)

## Overview

- **ID:** `date-detective`
- **Platform:** Firefox
- **Type:** Firefox add-on
- **Status:** Available
- **Publisher:** Lazar Čovs
- **Category:** feeds-news-blogging
- **Daily users:** 2
- **Version:** 1.2.5
- **Last updated:** 2025-12-28
- **First published:** 2025-12-25
- **Size:** 42 KB
- **Data as of:** 2026-09-10
- **Store listing:** [Firefox Add-ons Store](https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/date-detective/)
- **Website:** [https://github.com/Popravljam/publishing-date-finder](https://github.com/Popravljam/publishing-date-finder)
- **Privacy policy:** [https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/date-detective/privacy/](https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/date-detective/privacy/)

## Description

Publishing Date Finder helps journalists, researchers, and anyone who needs to verify when web content was published.

✨ KEY FEATURES

• 8 Detection Methods: Open Graph metadata, JSON-LD, microdata, HTML time elements, URL patterns, text heuristics, and Wayback Machine integration
• Confidence Scoring: Color-coded indicators (high/medium/low) show reliability
• Smart Content Filtering: Automatically excludes dates from sidebars, related articles, and navigation
• Multi-Language Support: 10+ languages including English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Japanese, Hindi, and Mandarin
• International Date Formats: DD.MM.YYYY, MM/DD/YYYY, DD-MM-YYYY, ISO 8601, YYYYMMDD
• Wayback Machine Integration: Check archived versions for undated pages

🎯 PERFECT FOR

• Journalists verifying source material
• Researchers documenting content
• Fact-checkers validating information
• Anyone who needs to know when content was published

🔒 PRIVACY FOCUSED

No data collection. No tracking. No external servers (except optional Wayback Machine lookup). Your browsing stays completely private.

📖 HOW TO USE
<ol><li>Navigate to any web page (news article, blog post, etc.)</li><li>Click the Date Detective icon in your toolbar</li><li>View detected dates with confidence indicators</li><li>See the source/method used for each date</li><li>Click "Check Archive" for Wayback Machine lookup</li></ol>
The extension prioritizes authoritative metadata sources over heuristic detection and intelligently filters out dates from page periphery content.

Open source project: <a href="https://prod.outgoing.prod.webservices.mozgcp.net/v1/4fcd24f017557c3877b6f1fdee8c9a44fbeeda4c9b0de5e846dde390bd1e28b4/https%3A//github.com/Popravljam/publishing-date-finder" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Popravljam/publishing-date-finder</a>

## Rankings

- #64,396 — Overall
- #56 — date
- #97 — detect

## Permissions and access

### Permissions

- `activeTab`
- `https://archive.org/*`

### Content script matches

- `<all_urls>`

## Safety

- **Risk impact:** Moderate risk impact
- **Risk likelihood:** Moderate risk likelihood

### Analysis details

- Allows access to all websites, posing a significant security risk as it can monitor and modify data from any visited site.
- This extension has low user count. Unpopular extensions may not be stable or safe.

> Some risk analysis details are omitted from this free response. [Upgrade to view the full analysis](https://chrome-stats.com/pricing).

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Source: [Chrome-Stats](https://chrome-stats.com/d/date-detective)