I use http://smile.amazon.com to make purchases and a tiny percent of sales goes to my charity of choice.
For some reason I can’t remember to go there when I go to buy stuff on Amazon, and lately my charity has missed out on like $400 worth of sales from me! (I had to replace my iPod)
I know how to redirect a browser using Javascript on the web and how to use a hosts file, but figuring out how to make my own client switch me to smile.amazon.com whenever I try to visit amazon.com or www.amazon.com seems to be beyond me.
A)If I make a big purchase, I quickly cancel it, hop over to smile.amazon and repurchse everything.
B)You CAN put things in your cart, then go to smile.Amazon to make the actual purchase and you’re okay. That’s what I normally do for the reason you mentioned. That way I can just browse the way I always do and when I’m ready to purchase that’s the only time I actually have to remember to change the URL.
C)I haven’t tried this yet, but I think if I delete all my browsing history for Amazon.Com and then go to Smile.Amazon.Com, then, from there, if I start to type amazon, my browser should take me to smile.amazon.com if I’m paying a little bit of attention.
D)I see Zipper listed some extensions, I didn’t click on them, I don’t know what they do.
E)Lastly, find the IP address for Smile.amazon.com, (it’s 176.32.100.183), then add an entry to your hosts file to send you to that IP address when you browser wants to go to Amazon.com. I don’t know how well that works with a site as complex as Amazon (and all it’s affiliates), but you could give it a shot.