Get the top HN stories in your inbox every day.
rickreynoldssf
greymalik
12ft.io has a very low success rate for anything I’ve tried.
moffkalast
Yeah it's a bit of a one trick pony as the dev explains on the home page, and that trick has long been patched by most sites.
nijave
Afaik there's issues on GitHub talking about both Chrome and Mozilla addon stores. I think the add-ons used to be split by browser so might be in an older repo issues
Edit: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/issues/...
gnicholas
I believe 12ft.io's extension has an opt-out, so many popular sites are blocked from its functionality.
trevcanhuman
The iOS Safari Reader view does - most of the time- the trick for me. Disabling javascript altogether (in Safari) works like a charm, at least for NYT articles.
InvaderFizz
I have an iOS shortcut[0] to clear the cookies and then uses google to get a referral link back to the page.
Works for a lot of sites, doesn't work for others.
Someone else created it, I just added a check for medium.com headers(even on non-medium domains) to then search on Twitter for that URL, as Twitter referrals usually bypasses medium paywalls.
0: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/5870106a5a8b4f15b937f40b731...
con
Cool! Good chance that was mine which I posted on HN and Reddit! Great that you further improved it! Thanks for sharing!
InvaderFizz
Looks like it was, thanks!
latchkey
Please note that this version got replaced by another version [1]. Apparently there was some drama [2] around Google Analytics tracking in the first one.
[1] https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-chrome-clean
[2] https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-chrome-clean...
makeworld
Thanks for posting these links so I didn't have to :)
I use this extension all the time and it works great.
markovbot
Wow, sneaking Google Analytics into an extension like this? Some people really have no morals
tomComb
Here we are discussing how to steal content and you make that comment about a developer who is giving you something for free? Wow, some people really have no perspective.
markovbot
You're right, I should be thankful for free spyware. my bad
barneygale
So sad for the journalists involved, who have to rewrite their article every time someone steals it.
postalrat
How is taking control of your browser considered stealing? Would it also be against some unwritten rule to use a black and white monitor?
strongpigeon
That's rather uncharitable. They most likely just want to get some usage data. It's ignoring the privacy concerns that come with GA, which isn't great, but saying they have no morals is more than a stretch.
fwn
They never embedded GA in the Firefox extension, just on Chrome and explained it by their assumption that chrome users probably aren't as opposed to Google tracking as those using Firefox.
Probably the only reason I remember it is because it felt like such a peculiar justification.
The other extension got some pretty shady backers on HN in the past as well. [1] I think that this kind of extension just attracts drama more than others.
moffkalast
Then they should read comments on the extension page lol, not spy on people.
commoner
The "Bypass Paywalls Clean (c)" version for Firefox doesn't prompt you for new domain permissions on every update, which is convenient if you trust the developer.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bypass-paywal...
Whether you choose the "(c)" version or the standard version (Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bypass-paywal...), Bypass Paywalls Clean is updated more regularly and supports more sites than the original Bypass Paywalls.
justanorherhack
Huh I was annoyed when I went to open a ticket rexently and the original repo was locked..
woojoo666
iirc this "clean" version is also extremely actively maintained, much more so than the original
mint2
Chrome > dev tools > network > article payload. Interestingly NYT has a hiring add in the console
DawsonBruce
Reader View on my phone usually does the trick, however, sites seem to be catching onto that.
mvexel
Worth noting that at least in the United States, your public library likely provides free access to some paywalled / subscription sites. Mine has NYT, WSJ, Consumer Reports and a bunch of others.
googlryas
How is that provided? Do they get their IP address whitelisted or something? I imagine it isn't just a library account logged into those sites.
mvexel
Typically, you log in to your library web site, they will give you a magic link to the paywalled web site which then gives you a 'subscription' that is good for the day.
gnicholas
This used to be a good option for me (in Silicon Valley), but when I last checked this option was much less attractive. Previously you could sign up for a 1-year pass; now it's something like a week.
mvexel
They definitely don't make it super convenient. With NYT I have to jump through the same hoop every day, with WSJ about once a week. On the plus side, it helps make the decision to read an article (or the news at all) more deliberate.
CrazyCatDog
It’s usually a limited number of passes, so when customer k+1 requests access, customer 1 gets dropped. I don’t tell anyone about my library’s resources—they’re great, and so are the ones 2 counties up ;)
jimbob456
Another one:
Remember, these paywalled sites are inviting in the Google Webcrawler to add to the index EVERYBODY searches; they are purposely poisoning Google's results with paid for content.
Any bypasser that either present fake credentials [ie as the google bot] or returns the contents of the Google cache is fair game.
ledauphin
somebody please solve micropayments.
ryandvm
I feel like Brave came pretty close with the Basic Attention Token, but not many web sites enrolled. Hell, last time I checked HN wasn't even set up on it (why not? what's the down side?).
pedro2
No idea. People don't really like to tip. It must be automatic. Maybe BAT & Coil are onto something.
brk
It would be a real joy if there were a way to tip for good content.
(for those that don't get the joke: https://techcrunch.com/2009/08/20/tipjoy-heads-to-the-deadpo...)
tootie
No publication would survive on micropayments per article. If they built a perfect UX flow, nobody would adopt it.
janandonly
Ever heard of Alby [1] to pay from the browser? Now, if you must have a paywall[2], that extension makes it possible to pay.
[2] https://lnpay.co
jcranberry
Ad-driven churnalist/click-bait journalism, here we come.
ig-88ms
We've been there for years.
tootie
Nah, this would just be death. Paywalls arose from the decline in ad revenue and I doubt much of that is coming from ad blockers. Ads just aren't worth as much. Paywall/subscriber model is the only want to be and a huge swath of publications already can't generate enough subs to survive. Others are getting swallowed up by private equity. If you evade paywalls too, then they'll just cease publication.
martingxx
Although I am fortunate enough to be able to afford to subscribe to almost anything I might want to read, I don't like the idea of paywalls in general.
I believe they exclude the less fortunate from access to important resources, so I refuse to give my money to companies that use paywalls, because I see that as rewarding bad behaviour.
Instead, I always pay for sites I find valuable that don't have paywalls (e.g., guardian.co.uk)
I realise this isn't the same view that everyone has, which is fine. Vote with your money.
OrvalWintermute
> I believe they exclude the less fortunate from access to important resources, so I refuse to give my money to companies that use paywalls, because I see that as rewarding bad behaviour.
I agree with what you wrote but I think it is an understatement.
The good fortune of spending an amount of years in a great coastal community with an excellent library system; those primarily physical assets I used as a child are now mainly digitized.
Where does that leave much of the world that cannot afford these exploitative paywalls?
This is truly a diversity & inclusion issue about providing the same 100 steps forward many of us were fortunate to receive, to everyone. Our tax dollars already funded much of it anyways.
We cannot permit the unjust enrichment of paywall tyranny!
xdfgh1112
Paywalls seem to work but at the cost of restricting access to a large group of people. It is evident from sites like Eurogamer, Wikipedia and The Guardian that a more patreon-like "supporter" model can work just as well without annoying people.
rat9988
Before paywalls newspapers tried free access for all and it didn't work. People always find a reason to justify why they don't want to pay.
martingxx
For some newspapers it _is_ working, so clearly it can work.
If some newspapers haven't figured out how to make open access work, but that's a problem with those newspapers, not with open access.
1vuio0pswjnm7
How many of these "paywalls" are reliant on Javascript and/or cookies.
From a quick glance I can attest that almost all of them show no "paywall" in a text-only browser that does not support Javascript.
I would be very curious about any "paywalls", i.e, deliberate annoyances directed at non-subscribers viewing public, non-password protected content, that are not reliant on Javascript and/or cookies.
acd
Who pays for journalism writing news if you bypass the paywall?
chihuahua
Jeff Bezos, at least in the case of the Washington Post.
AussieWog93
Advertisers.
Get the top HN stories in your inbox every day.
Why isn't this in the Chrome store? There's other extensions that integrate with 12ft.io in the Chrome store (e.g. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/12ft-free/ljgfopbn...) so there's no rules against this kind of thing.
So I wonder what this extension in particular is doing that Google wouldn't approve of.
...also 12ft.io already does this for almost every paywalled site.