TIL: A Simple Way to Remove Paywalls from Online News
This tool allows you to view URLs behind the paywall and open them in various archive and paywall bypass services. Just enter a URL in the field above and click on the desired service!
The linked tools allow you to view content that is hidden behind paywalls by showing a cached version of the page. It is important to note that we do not offer an illegal service and that the responsibility for using these services lies with the user. This way you bypass some paywalls that are present on sites that have poor paywall protection integrated.
13 replies
I'd love to use this as a firefox extension
https://github.com/bpc-clone?tab=repositories there you go
😢
My two nearest local papers are run by one company (I think) and their tech people are savvy as fuck. None of these paywall bypass sites work more than once, EVER. Archive doesn't even work.
It’s easy to restrict access. It’s hard to restrict access while letting search engines index your content, driving traffic. Maybe a local paper simply gets most of its traffic from the first paragraph summary, or local subscribers, so they don’t need to let Google index the whole article.
Try an RSS app like Feeder. That one will even try to find the feed given a url to the site. Worked for several sites that don't advertise having a feed.
Is Google cache still a thing?
Nope
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/google-search-kills-off-cached-webpages/
I haven’t seen it cache any pages or articles in at least a year, probably more.
I’m also using it less, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That was such a cool service. I always wondered why one day it wasn’t there anymore.
Because google.kills everything good
Simplified View usually skips the paywall for me.
Usually you can open the link and after a second turn on Airplane Mode. The article will have time to load but not the pay wall.