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Getting around website paywalls with devtools alone

bbarrows.com

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Re: Getting around website paywalls with devtools alone

#101

Post by DennisP »

k_sze wrote: post #68
DennisP wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I subscribe to a major newspaper. But I'm not going to subscribe to all major newspapers. The individual subscription model doesn't really fit a world where you can go to one site, and click links to articles from lots of different publications. If they had a common subscription, where you pay one reasonable fee and they divide it up according to whose articles you read, I'd subscribe to that. Since they don't, I sub…

How about getting a paid membership for certain higher education institutions’ libraries, which will give you access to not only books, but also a plethora of periodicals. And that will be fully legal and ethical.

Will a library membership remove the hassle when I click a link from reddit?

Re: Getting around website paywalls with devtools alone

#102

Post by huy77 »

enumjorge wrote: post #83
samwillis wrote: post #11

Many sites don't contains the full content even if you do that. I'm not sure of how it works (does it subscribed to them all?) but https://archive.ph/ is a good way to see the content in those cases. But really, if you are regularly reading content on a site you should subscribe to support the journalists employed there.

I’d be more willing to subscribe if publications didn’t pull the dark pattern of making signing up fast and easy, but then requiring a call to a rep to cancel. I used to subscribe to the nytimes but a few years ago I needed a break from news. My plan was to come back in 6-12 months, but they made me wait on the phone for 25 mins for something that should have taken a couple of minutes on their site. I cancelled and n…

the browser should have a wallet feature, instead of asking you to subscribe, just pay for one article you want to read

Re: Getting around website paywalls with devtools alone

#103

Post by bebrws »

drewtato wrote: post #5

Usually on these sites, there'll be an `overflow: hidden` element that's holding all the content. If you can find and disable that CSS line, it'll work as normal. Or just save it to the Wayback Machine and read it through that.

I am going to add this to the post if that is alright. Please let me know if I shouldn't cite your HN username on the post. You can reply here and I'll see it. Thank you, this is super helpful.

Re: Getting around website paywalls with devtools alone

#106

Post by nicwolff »

enumjorge wrote: post #83
samwillis wrote: post #11

Many sites don't contains the full content even if you do that. I'm not sure of how it works (does it subscribed to them all?) but https://archive.ph/ is a good way to see the content in those cases. But really, if you are regularly reading content on a site you should subscribe to support the journalists employed there.

I’d be more willing to subscribe if publications didn’t pull the dark pattern of making signing up fast and easy, but then requiring a call to a rep to cancel. I used to subscribe to the nytimes but a few years ago I needed a break from news. My plan was to come back in 6-12 months, but they made me wait on the phone for 25 mins for something that should have taken a couple of minutes on their site. I cancelled and n…

You could suspend your subscription. (Shhh – suspending print delivery doesn't interrupt your access to the site or the Replica Edition ツ)

Re: Getting around website paywalls with devtools alone

#108

Post by gorkish »

enumjorge wrote: post #83
samwillis wrote: post #11

Many sites don't contains the full content even if you do that. I'm not sure of how it works (does it subscribed to them all?) but https://archive.ph/ is a good way to see the content in those cases. But really, if you are regularly reading content on a site you should subscribe to support the journalists employed there.

I’d be more willing to subscribe if publications didn’t pull the dark pattern of making signing up fast and easy, but then requiring a call to a rep to cancel. I used to subscribe to the nytimes but a few years ago I needed a break from news. My plan was to come back in 6-12 months, but they made me wait on the phone for 25 mins for something that should have taken a couple of minutes on their site. I cancelled and n…

My secret weapon for cutting through the call-to-cancel CSR script with a machete is the following:

"May I ask why you want to cancel your account today?"

"No, you may not."

For some insane reason they ALL phrase the question this way, enabling this little grammatical gem of a response. Enjoy.

Re: Getting around website paywalls with devtools alone

#110

Post by throwaway29303 »

It seems the cat's out of the bag now. There's also another interesting way of getting around paywalls: a simple race condition. While loading the page hit stop as soon as you load enough of the content you're interested in et voilà. It does not work 100% of the time and I'm not using Chrome, however. ;)
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