simple linkify (from MS Visual Studio upgrade report). See also: http://benalman.com/code/projects/javascript-linkify/examples/linkify/

linkify.js

// Linkifies the specified text content, replaces candidate links with html links 
function linkify(text)
{
     if(!text || 0 === text.length)
     {
         return text; 
     }

     // Find http, https and ftp links and replace them with hyper links 
     var urlLink = /(http|https|ftp)\:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9\-\.]+(:[a-zA-Z0-9]*)?\/?([a-zA-Z0-9\-\._\?\,\/\\\+&%\$#\=~;\{\}])*/gi;
     
     return text.replace(urlLink, '<a href="$&">$&</a>') ;
}

// Linkifies the specified element by ID
function linkifyElement(id)
{
    var element = document.getElementById(id);
    if(!!element)
    {
      element.innerHTML = linkify(element.innerHTML); 
    }