We all know the web is awash with hyperbolic headlines, otherwise known as ‘linkbait‘, and yet – oh dear, please forgive us – we all indulge in the practice. Of course some publishers have made a science out of it, for most of the rest of us it’s just a way to survive the noise out there. But now there’s a way to fight back…

The free Downworthy browser plugin is designed to downgrade all those viral hunting headlines into more realistic phrases, to help you get some perspective on the content you’ll be procrastinating with today, sir.

The result is words like ‘priceless‘ becomes ‘painfully ordinary‘, ‘terrifying‘ becomes ‘thoroughly banal‘ and so on. Brilliant! Sorry, I mean rather cool. The plugin is currently only available for Chrome unfortunately, but Firefox and Safari versions are promised soon.

Hopefully if the plugin becomes widely loved and installed we can stop the rot and return to a more reflective headline universe (‘You’ll Probably Find This Video A Little Interesting If You Enjoy Watching Rabbits’).