I have used AM-Deadlink for many years, 3.1 and previous versions. I have a large number of favorites, but I don’t visit all of the sites on a regular basis. This is a great utility for identifying websites that have gone dark or websites that changed their address. Also Deadlink identifies links that actually redirect you to another site – a great feature if you are paranoid like me. The program runs very quickly by establishing 10 concurrent connections to the web. This means the program is checking 10 sites at a time; as soon as one is tested it moves the available connection to the next link. For those of you that are fans of having site icons appear in your favorites list, Deadlink will add or update the icons. Deadlink has a feature to find duplicate links in your favorites list; again great if you have a ton of links but can’t always remember you have a stored link. The GUI allows the user to sort the results in multiple ways on the fly depending on your preference. Finally, Deadlink has a built in browser, so it is not necessary to leave the program to validate the status of a link; this improves the efficiency of the process.

There are a few cons. Deadlink will occasionally identify a link as dead when in reality it works. Always double check those links (not a big deal; as noted I have lots of links and only a handful are marked with errors; most of the time they are dead). There does not seem to be a pattern as to why this occurs. If a website requires a login or password, Deadlink link may or may not categorize the status accurately. Deadlink does not have a high tolerance for slow web servers (not user definable). If a site times out, Deadlink plows right ahead. You may want to check the sites identified as timed out.

It may not be 100% perfect, but it is significantly better than most commercial products. Considering it is free, AM-Deadlink is a must have utility.