Patent ID: 7484178

Claim:
A method in a data processing system for processing a set of links in a document, the method comprising: responsive to receiving the document, displaying all of the set of links; wherein external links are displayed as being in an initial state; and the external links are visually displayed differently from internal links in the set of links by using different character display characteristics than those used for displaying the internal links; validating only the external links in the set of links by (i) sending a request using a external link in the set of links; (ii) responsive to content being returned, identifying the external link as being valid, and (iii) responsive to an error occurring, identifying the external link as being invalid; wherein the validating step includes initiating a thread for each external link in the set of links by a link validation process of a web browser plug-in to validate all external links in the set of links; responsive to identifying the external link as being valid, changing the display of the external link to a valid state; responsive to identifying the external link as being invalid, changing the display of the external link to a invalid state; and the initial, valid, and invalid states associated with the external links are concurrently displayed; wherein the valid state is displayed using a first color, the invalid state is displayed using a second color, and the initial state is displayed using a third color; and the first, second, and third colors are different colors.