[HN Gopher] Browser Extension to Bypass Media Sites Paywalls
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Browser Extension to Bypass Media Sites Paywalls
        
       Author : patrickk
       Score  : 141 points
       Date   : 2022-06-15 13:24 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | acd wrote:
       | Who pays for journalism writing news if you bypass the paywall?
        
         | AussieWog93 wrote:
         | Advertisers.
        
         | chihuahua wrote:
         | Jeff Bezos, at least in the case of the Washington Post.
        
       | sk8terboi wrote:
       | That's pretty cool but I don't ever go to those sites. I guess
       | that's a +1 for me!
        
       | N3mor wrote:
       | Using uBlock Origin - Advanced Settings, I have been blocking
       | inline scripts and bypassing Paywalls.
        
       | Cypher wrote:
       | I find the main media sites hardly worth bothering with anymore
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | ledauphin wrote:
       | somebody please solve micropayments.
        
         | brk wrote:
         | 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...)
        
         | ryandvm wrote:
         | 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 wrote:
           | No idea. People don't really like to tip. It must be
           | automatic. Maybe BAT & Coil are onto something.
        
         | janandonly wrote:
         | 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.
         | 
         | [1] https://getalby.com
         | 
         | [2] https://lnpay.co
        
       | trevcanhuman wrote:
       | 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 wrote:
         | 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...
        
       | ryandvm wrote:
       | HN cracks me up. We are largely a demographic of people that make
       | money from selling our IP and yet for some reason many of us are
       | pretty brazen about our efforts to circumvent payment for others'
       | IP.
       | 
       | I'll admit that I incognito my way around a paywall from time to
       | time, but I at least have the decency to feel kinda salty about
       | it.
        
         | nonameiguess wrote:
         | I don't really buy this. I think I technically have
         | subscriptions to both the Washington Post and New York Times
         | that my wife purchased that I assume are valid for an entire
         | household, and I used to subscribe to the LA Times when I was
         | younger and read a physical newspaper.
         | 
         | The consumption model now just isn't comparable, though. If I
         | was regularly going to my city newspaper's website to figure
         | out what was going on, I'd pay them. But that isn't what is
         | happening. Instead, their links are getting spammed all over
         | the web to link aggregation sites like Hacker News, mixed in
         | with links to non-paywalled content, from a universe of
         | thousand of providers, many of which provide all of the content
         | for free. Subscribing to one newspaper is fine, but there is no
         | conceivable world in which I'm going to purchase subscriptions
         | to every paywalled site I ever encounter a link to, especially
         | when I usually don't know before clicking that it is paywalled.
         | 
         | Nonetheless, being able to meaningfully participate in the
         | conversations generated by the article on link aggregator sites
         | like this that provide comment sections means I need to read
         | the articles, doesn't it? If the only options for consistently
         | being able to do that are either 1) purchase 300+ distinct
         | subscriptions to sites where I have no idea if I'm ever going
         | back again, or 2) bypass the paywalls, I'm going to bypass the
         | paywalls.
        
           | tablespoon wrote:
           | > Nonetheless, being able to meaningfully participate in the
           | conversations generated by the article on link aggregator
           | sites like this that provide comment sections means I need to
           | read the articles, doesn't it? If the only options for
           | consistently being able to do that are either 1) purchase
           | 300+ distinct subscriptions to sites where I have no idea if
           | I'm ever going back again, or 2) bypass the paywalls, I'm
           | going to bypass the paywalls.
           | 
           | You're looking at it purely from the perspective of a
           | consumer, which misses pretty significant parts of the
           | picture. Someone needed to get paid to produced a lot of that
           | content, and in many cases they won't have the revenue to do
           | that without a paywall.
           | 
           | Your justification isn't too different from one that goes "if
           | I want to meaningfully participate in American society, I
           | need a car. However I don't want to pay $30,000+ for one, so
           | if I can pick locks and hotwire a car to get the
           | transportation I want, I'll do that instead of paying."
        
         | tablespoon wrote:
         | > HN cracks me up. We are largely a demographic of people that
         | make money from selling our IP and yet for some reason many of
         | us are pretty brazen about our efforts to circumvent payment
         | for others' IP.
         | 
         | Eh, that's not really correct. Most of us _actually_ make money
         | from creating IP for others to own, so it 's not nearly as
         | hypocritical as you imply.
         | 
         | IMHO, the brazenness is cultural momentum from the expectations
         | formed during the heady 90s "information wants to be free"
         | period and the resulting _long_ period where paywalls were
         | rare. Honestly, it probably would have been better for everyone
         | if everything had been pay-walled from the beginning.
        
           | OrvalWintermute wrote:
           | > Most of us actually make money from creating IP for others
           | to own, so it's not nearly as hypocritical as you imply.
           | 
           | Actually, I think most of us provide services, and it is a
           | big mix.
           | 
           | > many of us are pretty brazen about our efforts to
           | circumvent payment for others' IP.
           | 
           | Let me start with a link on Elsevier https://openatcuny.commo
           | ns.gc.cuny.edu/2015/05/20/elsevier-e...
           | 
           | Much of what is said about Elsevier, the worst offender, is
           | true to a lesser extent in other paywalls.
           | 
           | I don't believe that paywalls are Moral, Ethical, or Fair. I
           | also believe that paywalls can be discrimatory, and
           | deceptive. This goes along with a general critique I have of
           | IP. Paywalls regularly use others' content, without
           | compensating them.
           | 
           | In many cases, content thieves likes Elsevier take content
           | that is funded by our tax dollars, and hide it behind
           | paywalls, or expensive subscriptions. I paid for that. This
           | is stealing from me.
           | 
           | IP is really a fake term that conflates a number of things,
           | some of which are just ideas or math. It also regularly
           | cheats basic things like "Right of First Sale" through BS
           | such as licensing/bundling/etc
           | 
           | Paywalls regularly permit search engines to index their
           | content, but when you go to see the content that was openly
           | indexed, they block you, and hit you up for funding. This is
           | a bait & switch. Some paywalls vacillate between business
           | models intentionally to get your personal data, sell it,
           | while using ads, then go full paywall after the sale has
           | already been made of info.
           | 
           | I think there is a social contract underpinning
           | communications, that we were always free to redistribute
           | them. But the "Communication thieves" Paywalls don't want
           | that through the cottage industry that grew to exploit these
           | gaps.
           | 
           | If we think of the negative impacts of all these paywalls to
           | the 3rd world and increasing digitization, talk about a
           | horrible digital divide emerging?
           | 
           | Signed,
           | 
           | Militant Anti-Paywall Revolutionary
        
             | tablespoon wrote:
             | > Much of what is said about Elsevier, the worst offender,
             | is true to a lesser extent in other paywalls.
             | 
             | Honestly, I think it's a mistake reason about _all_
             | paywalls from the example of Elsevier 's paywalls. There
             | are a lot of unique aspects to the production of academic
             | work that are not present in other areas.
             | 
             | Revenue is needed to fund the creation of other kinds of
             | work, such as news reporting, and for stuff like that,
             | paywalls are needed because other free-access revenue
             | models frankly didn't work.
        
           | azinman2 wrote:
           | If everything had been paywalled from the beginning, the
           | internet would have been less successful. Most of that free
           | information was possible because there was enough print
           | subscription and personal ads money to subsidize it all. That
           | is no longer true.
        
         | ImminentDugong wrote:
         | Yet this is called Hacker News, and hackers usually like to,
         | well, hack and work around stuff just because they can.
         | 
         | It's one of the nice things of knowing how technology works,
         | and as long as it's doable only by technical people it's
         | probably not a big issue for IP / content creators (I'm
         | considering adding an extension from source a technical task).
         | 
         | As long as you don't commoditize piracy too much, it's fine.
        
           | prmoustache wrote:
           | > As long as you don't commoditize piracy too much, it's
           | fine.
           | 
           | Still, I wouldn't call that piracy at all.
           | 
           | As a non subscriber they open their door to you, offer you a
           | counter and tell you you can lurk anything until the counter
           | say you have to leave or pay. But that counter only really
           | work if you accept to put batteries inside and turn it on and
           | nobody is really bothering to check.
           | 
           | Also they chose to use drug dealers methods knowing very well
           | that network effects will make you knock at their door on a
           | regular basis.
           | 
           | Choosing to ignore that counter would be unethical/rude the
           | same way taking photo in a museum that prohibit them is. But
           | none of this is piracy.
        
         | batch12 wrote:
         | I guess I am a horrible human being. I don't feel bad at all
         | blocking ads, bypassing client side modal popups, or viewing
         | data happily provided to search engines with the intent of
         | giving me a taste. To be fair, I mostly just don't read
         | paywalled articles.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | Mordisquitos wrote:
         | It's not our problem if media sites send us the full content of
         | their articles and expect our browsers to implement their
         | arcane decisions whether to magnanimously allow us to see it
         | this time or not.
         | 
         | If they don't like it, it's trivial to put their content behind
         | a requirement to log in with a validated account. In fact, it's
         | even easier than what they do now!
         | 
         | Oh, but wait, that won't play with the SEO, user engagement,
         | social media sharing, dark patterns to entice users to pay by
         | offering them a few crumbs now and then... Again, not my
         | problem. They do them, I'll do me.
        
           | VWWHFSfQ wrote:
           | This is quite a lot of gymnastics you're doing here to
           | justify to yourself why you don't want to pay to read
           | people's news stories.
        
             | nonrandomstring wrote:
             | Sure, there are a lot of moral gymnastics going on here.
             | 
             | Seems we don't really have a good understanding of what
             | goes wrong with paywalled links.
             | 
             | For me, as an author, I find myself in a ridiculous
             | situation when I want to share with friends works I've done
             | for a site that uses paywalls but doesn't pay me (yes this
             | happens in the real world of publishing). So I am
             | ambivalent and often share a link along with instructions
             | on how to bypass access controls.
             | 
             | But more generally I am irritated by links other people
             | share, such as here on HN, that are paywalled. I'd rather
             | not know about them than experience the frustration and
             | time-waste of following them.
             | 
             | So there is a contradiction/tension at the heart of digital
             | publishing, that creators, critics, researchers and
             | commenters really want exposure/reach more than they want
             | (or get) money.
             | 
             | That said, paywalls are not the only problem and are more
             | understandable than sites that block Tor, use Cloudflare,
             | Geo-block, or those brain-dead ISPs or university sysadmins
             | who block sites based on broad keywords so that almost any
             | kind of research is impossible without tunnelling out past
             | their crappy firewalls.
        
             | Mordisquitos wrote:
             | And yet I do pay subscriptions for the news and
             | publications whose content I find good enough to be
             | interested in what they will publish next, or if I support
             | what they stand for. However, I feel no reason to pay
             | subscriptions for one-off articles that may interest me
             | from the myriad of media companies that I don't care to
             | follow for one reason or another if they send me the
             | content anyway. Their business model is not my problem.
        
               | VWWHFSfQ wrote:
               | You can just say you don't want to pay for it and would
               | rather steal. No need to try to find some moral
               | justification for it.
        
               | laserlight wrote:
               | Do you have a legal reference that states bypassing
               | paywalls is stealing?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | sciguy77 wrote:
       | FYI, I was still blocked by WaPo's paywall after the first
       | article, even though this extension is showing itself as on in
       | Chrome (tried restart to no avail).
        
       | moneywoes wrote:
       | Any idea for mobile?
        
         | NoGravitas wrote:
         | I have this one (https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-
         | paywalls-chrome-clean) installed in Firefox for Android. You do
         | have to jump through a few hoops because it's not on the
         | recommended list.
        
           | vasili111 wrote:
           | Could you please give information about "few hooks"? I need
           | to install add9n that is not on recommended list.
        
             | hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
             | These instructions work on either Firefox Nightly for
             | Android (through Google Play Store) or Fennec F-Droid
             | (through the F-Droid store). They won't work on regular
             | Firefox for Android.
             | https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-
             | extensio...
        
         | gnicholas wrote:
         | Insight Browser (a YC company!) has an iOS browser that
         | supports extensions. I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult for
         | someone to take this extension and port it to their platform.
        
         | jaimehrubiks wrote:
         | For Android, use Kiwi browser (basically chrome) and install
         | it. It works great
        
       | mint2 wrote:
       | Chrome > dev tools > network > article payload. Interestingly NYT
       | has a hiring add in the console
        
         | m348e912 wrote:
         | Where is article payload? I tried this with NYT and couldn't
         | find what you're pointing at under the network tab.
        
           | mint2 wrote:
           | Did you clear, then refresh page?
        
             | m348e912 wrote:
             | Yup
        
       | janandonly wrote:
       | Brilliant.
       | 
       | I will be testing this, starting now....
        
       | latchkey wrote:
       | 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 wrote:
         | Thanks for posting these links so I didn't have to :)
         | 
         | I use this extension all the time and it works great.
        
         | justanorherhack wrote:
         | Huh I was annoyed when I went to open a ticket rexently and the
         | original repo was locked..
        
         | markovbot wrote:
         | Wow, sneaking Google Analytics into an extension like this?
         | Some people really have no morals
        
           | strongpigeon wrote:
           | 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 wrote:
             | 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.
             | 
             | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22482804
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | moffkalast wrote:
             | Then they should read comments on the extension page lol,
             | not spy on people.
        
               | sofixa wrote:
               | Google Analytics is not spyware, it just counts users,
               | OSes, browsers, page views. It doesn't identify users
               | personally ( you could if you knew the only person with a
               | Chromebook in a city, but that's about as granular as it
               | could get).
               | 
               | As can be seen by any statistic - be it the
               | download/rate/comment ratios on any of the mobile app
               | stores, or the Chrome extension stores, the vast majority
               | of users will stay silent. Wanting to know a _tiny_ bit
               | about them is understandable.
        
           | tomComb wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | barneygale wrote:
             | So sad for the journalists involved, who have to rewrite
             | their article every time someone steals it.
        
             | markovbot wrote:
             | You're right, I should be thankful for free spyware. my bad
        
       | jcranberry wrote:
       | Ad-driven churnalist/click-bait journalism, here we come.
        
         | ig-88ms wrote:
         | We've been there for years.
        
       | DawsonBruce wrote:
       | Reader View on my phone usually does the trick, however, sites
       | seem to be catching onto that.
        
       | janandonly wrote:
       | This is why we can not have nice things online....
       | 
       | Why not implement a paywall that lets you pay for an article? The
       | tech already exists, see [1] and [2]. And if you feel bad about
       | leaving your credit card details somewhere, you could use a
       | plugin like Alby [3].
       | 
       | [1] https://lnpay.co
       | 
       | [2] https://coil.com
       | 
       | [3] https://getalby.com
        
         | dclusin wrote:
         | Due to interchange fees on the major processing networks it is
         | not practical to charge less then $1. Fees per charge are
         | something like 30 cents plus percentage of transaction.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | godmode2019 wrote:
         | Because a very small amount of the articles are worth paying
         | for, so they bundle the product together to with all the low
         | quality articles that no one will pay for.
        
           | Cypher wrote:
        
           | culi wrote:
           | And how will I know if an article was worth paying for until
           | I've already read it? This might work with a site I frequent
           | and have grown to trust but most of the views on most
           | articles aren't regulars of the publication itself but
           | probably got there because it was shared or came up as a
           | search result
        
         | strongpigeon wrote:
         | It is a tricky situation. On the one hand, subscription models
         | are great as they don't incentivize flashy click-bait as much
         | and reward steady, high-quality content. On the other hand, you
         | don't know whether a publication is worth subscribing to until
         | you've sampled some of their content.
         | 
         | The "free-articles-then-paywall" model seems to be working for
         | a lot of publications to tackle this and get people to pay, but
         | when your limit is 1 article a month, you can't be too shocked
         | if people go around it. I like the idea of TechCrunch free +
         | paid content, but I wonder how it's working for them.
        
       | AussieWog93 wrote:
       | A couple of comments here talking about how this is piracy, none
       | discussing the fact that paywalls are a completely broken
       | business model in an era where sharing information with your
       | friends/online communities is so important.
       | 
       | Back in the day, with physical paper, if you wanted to discuss an
       | article with someone you'd simply hand them the paper and point.
       | Now, people simply don't share paywalled articles, or if they do
       | someone will comment an archived link immediately.
       | 
       | As Gabe Newell once said, "piracy is almost always a service
       | problem". If the media companies started delivering the product
       | in a way that people actually want the problem of piracy would
       | disappear overnight.
       | 
       | Just shooting the shit, but $x a month to read the paper, with a
       | button to generate un-paywalled links to share with friends and
       | family, and $y a month for a "thought leader" version that lets
       | you generate un-paywalled links with unlimited circulation would
       | let people consume and share news the way they actually want to
       | while still being monetisable.
       | 
       | Trying to charge everyone who looks at your article in an era
       | where success is defined by virality is just dumb.
        
       | martingxx wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | xdfgh1112 wrote:
         | 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.
        
         | ziffusion wrote:
        
         | OrvalWintermute wrote:
         | > 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!
        
         | rat9988 wrote:
         | 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 wrote:
           | 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.
        
       | polyterative wrote:
       | If prices had been better, I would've been a subscriber for a
       | long time
        
         | a3w wrote:
         | For me, the internet works like this: you find a link on social
         | media. A cookie banner or paywall prevents me from reading the
         | article. So I read the comments section. Nice shooting yourself
         | in the foot, original content creator.
        
         | brk wrote:
         | Agreed. Same goes for online streaming content. I'll pay up to
         | $50/mo in total for media subscriptions (eg: Netflix). I won't
         | pay $19.99 for 8 individual services that each have 1 or 2
         | things worth watching and then a bunch of filler (Netflix is
         | continually heading this direction, IMO).
         | 
         | I have no issues at all paying for content, but I really only
         | want to pay for the things that interest me directly, not a
         | bundle of shows that have no personal appeal. And there is a
         | disincentive to have too many services in general.
        
           | sofixa wrote:
           | > Netflix is continually heading this direction
           | 
           | It's not really their choice. Most of the content owners have
           | their own competing service now, so Netflix need content.
           | Small amounts of good quality content won't keep people
           | subscribed for long, so they need quantity _and_ quality.
        
           | VWWHFSfQ wrote:
           | I like having a lot of choices. I don't want to be stuck with
           | one conglomerate service that just absorbs everything else
           | Disney style.
        
         | dawnerd wrote:
         | If they all didn't end up being low effort press-release
         | regurgitations I might subscribe to more as well.
        
         | slowmotiony wrote:
         | I was a subscriber to NYT until I wanted to cancel and there
         | was no option to do that, you had to call some number in the US
         | and explain yourself to some guy about why you want to cancel
         | your subscription. Learned my lesson there, never again.
        
           | xdfgh1112 wrote:
           | Same. Left a really bad impression. Their shitty pricing
           | model too, charging people $100s/year until they try to
           | cancel then reducing it down to like $30/year.
        
           | bigmattystyles wrote:
           | Whenever they have an online help chat with a human and they
           | tell me to call, I tell them I deaf. It's not true but they
           | have always just done the cancellation for me. YMMV
        
           | shp0ngle wrote:
           | Me too. This is why I just subscribe to Substack now. Yes
           | they try to subtly pressure you in ux to "just pause", but
           | that's nothing compared to NYT "please call this US line".
        
       | jimbob456 wrote:
       | Another one:
       | 
       | https://txtify.it/
       | 
       | 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.
        
       | newfonewhodis wrote:
       | I'll probably get downvoted into oblivion but I gotta put this
       | out here:
       | 
       | I understand adblocking because of how absolutely garbage ad
       | networks are for privacy (and to some extent device performance).
       | But I can't help and compare mass bypassing paywalls of news
       | sites to jumping the pike on a transit network.
       | 
       | Some people should probably do it (who really can't afford
       | subscriptions) but generally HN audience is well paid and can
       | afford to support their sources of news.
       | 
       | I know people here will come up with ~~reasons~~ excuses for
       | justifying this theft, but it just reinforces the entitled nature
       | of well-paid tech workers in my mind.
       | 
       | Go pay for your news.
        
         | xenocratus wrote:
         | That's not a legitimate comparison of the situation, because if
         | you can bypass the paywall to be able to read it usually means
         | the data is already on your device for you to read in the first
         | place, it's just "hidden" in some shitty way.
         | 
         | I would compare it with a physical newspaper company sending
         | you the newspaper covered in some tamper-resistant material
         | that lets you read the first rows only. I see no reason why you
         | shouldn't try to tamper with that cover given that you
         | effectively own it now.
         | 
         | Go full "log in to read this" (by which I mean only sending the
         | data you intend EVERYONE to read even when the user is not
         | logged in) and then it's a fair comparison.
         | 
         | EDIT: > I know people here will come up with ~~reasons~~
         | excuses for justifying this theft, but it just reinforces the
         | entitled nature of well-paid tech workers in my mind.
         | 
         | I think the industry that has given rise to shitty paywallish
         | implementations should justify themselves as well, then.
         | 
         | NB: I pay/have paid for news sources, including ones that I
         | appreciated but had literally no time to read. However, this
         | sort of approach to "protecting IP" is particularly stupid, so
         | I feel no remorse bypassing it (I do it manually, though, it's
         | more satisfying).
        
         | wetpaws wrote:
         | I'm fine with idea paying for news, but I'm not fine when 99%
         | of links I click are paywalled.
        
       | rickreynoldssf wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | greymalik wrote:
         | 12ft.io has a very low success rate for anything I've tried.
        
           | moffkalast wrote:
           | 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 wrote:
         | 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 wrote:
         | I believe 12ft.io's extension has an opt-out, so many popular
         | sites are blocked from its functionality.
        
       | mvexel wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | gnicholas wrote:
         | 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.
        
         | googlryas wrote:
         | 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.
        
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