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On the Future of 12ft

12ft.io

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Re: On the Future of 12ft

#71

Post by gruez »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #42
Swizec wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't do it client side. Well-implemented paywalls clip the content server-side. If you're Google, you get the full HTML, if you're not, you don't.

> If you're Google, you get the full HTML, if you're not, you don't. reply This company isn't Google either, though. Or are you suggesting that they're using Google Compute Engine and therefore get the unpaywalled version?

That might work with crappy implementations (eg. they check ASN = Google), but google publishes a whitelist of their crawler bot IP ranges, so spoofing that is all but impossible.

Re: On the Future of 12ft

#72

Post by makeworld »

gzer0 wrote: post #15
tru3_power wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t get the architecture behind the site. Why do the request need to come from this service? How are the paywalls actually being bypassed? Edit: derp. Just read the now section. So if a copy of the cache is just being downloaded why couldn’t this type of thing all be done locally?

I replied this in another comment, but here is a look into an opensource version that you can compile. It will give you a good idea of how it works behind the scenes [1]. [1] https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome

Also: https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-chrome-clean

Re: On the Future of 12ft

#73

Post by HWR_14 »

mdoms wrote: post #23
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disingenuous to tease content that is behind a paywall.

Someone better tell every movie studio on Earth that's it's disingenuous to make movie trailers.

Frequently movie trailers are very disingenuous. They include scenes not in movies. They emphasize minor scenes cut to present a different view of the movie to different audiences, often to the point of completely misleading at least one population as to what the movie is about.

Re: On the Future of 12ft

#74

Post by morelish »

mdoms wrote: post #46
spiderice wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you don’t need someone to point out to you that those aren’t the same things.

You're right. One of them is professionally produced content, advertised with a preview to whet your appetite, where you're expected to pay for the right to consume it fully. While the other is.... uhh.... the same thing.

Guess that’s the thing. When it shows up in your search result, we do expect it to be ready to read without paying for it. This is partly Google’s fault for not making it easier to exclude paywalled content. Would paywalled content-providers like Google implementing that feature? I doubt it. But also we can use something like 12ft.io.

Re: On the Future of 12ft

#75

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

Generally, for recreational web use, I never use Javascript, or even CSS. I prefer to use a text-only browser.

There are websites that apparently have "paywalls", but without Javascript, I do not even know these "paywalls" exist. I read every article on a website without any indication of any limitations.

The NY Times and The Economist are examples. What people refer to as "paywalls" are simply Javascript annoyances. One has to run the Javascript to experience the annoyance.

Perhaps the "privilege" of running the website's Javascript is a "benefit" of subscription. However I would not run the Javascript regardless of whether I was subscribed or not. That choice has nothing to do with the idea of "paywall". I choose not to run Javascript on any website. This improves the web experience for me in too many ways to count.

News publications could approach susbscription as (a) access versus (b) no access, e.g., password-protection. Yet some publications approach subscription instead as (a) access without Javascript annoyances versus (b) access with Javascript annoyances. Of course (b) only applies if one chooses to run the Javascript.

Every web user has the option not to run other people's code, i.e., Javascript.

The access model that scientific journals use seems to work well enough. Access is granted to an IP address. If the subscriber is on a different IP address, she can get access through a password-protected proxy.

Re: On the Future of 12ft

#78

Post by cranberryturkey »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #11

I kind of laughed at that, but it seems like asking for trouble. Bypassing paywalls on a slightly underground basis is something the publications might tolerate or live with like ad blockers, but doing it for profit is painting a target on your back. Also I wonder what kind of hosting 12ft is using, where bandwith costs so much, unless they are using 100s of TB per month or more (maybe they are). These days there is…

exactly even a 10gbps line would only be a fraction of what AWS would charge you at a smaller outfit.

Re: On the Future of 12ft

#80

Post by rhinoceraptor »

wrs wrote: post #24
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be fine with that if they didn't let search engines crawl their content. If they want to be on the web, they have to play by the rules of the web. Instead what they want is to reap the benefits of the web while refusing to participate in the open web.

What the heck are the “rules of the web”? Only valueless information is allowed to be indexed? Are you offended that when you search for a book on Amazon you have to pay to read the whole thing?

It's a bait and switch. They give the search engines full text to crawl, and then nothing when a user clicks that link from their search. They got the tangible monetary benefits of having a high Google search ranking, without giving access to the actual content, which is how the web is supposed to work.

It's not my fault that news websites have continually debased their users with horrible advertising and tracking, to the point where ad-supported news is pretty much no longer viable. There are plenty of examples of smaller content offerings like podcasts which do quite well being ad-supported, because they have the trust of their audience, and they only accept quality advertisers so they can charge a premium for their ad space.

Books are different, they are not the web. I find things like Google Books very helpful, even for things like when I'm reading a physical book and want to look up which page I read something, even though I can't read the full book through it.

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