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Without them requiring something like a credit card, it would be fairly easy for somewhat determined "attackers" to get an arbitrary number of free trials. At s

Without them requiring something like a credit card, it would be fairly easy for somewhat determined "attackers" to get an arbitrary number of free trials. At some point the Guardian (IIRC; may have been some other paper I read from time to time) had some sort of hilarious "we'll use cookies to enforce N free article views per month" policy. Of course this doesn't work well against people who know that they can delete cookies.

autarch 6y ago
There are still sites doing this. Bloomberg is one I can think of, since I've deleted my cookies (and other local storage) for that site more than once, with success.
- ziml77 6y ago
  I highly doubt Bloomberg cares enough. They make their money selling terminal subscriptions and data feeds for obscene amounts.
  - Symbiote 6y ago
    Sites are gradually tightening up on workarounds like clearing cookies. Simply opening Bloomberg nwes in a private tab now fails (I think it's a bug that the site can detect a private tab is used).
    - toyg 6y ago
      Others are actually getting looser though, because they fear losing google juice. I know of a massive European newspaper that just leaves the entire content of paywalled items simply hidden in the DOM.
    - bloak 6y ago
      It worked for me just now, with Chrome. If you're on Linux, have you tried `mkdir /tmp/t234 && HOME=/tmp/t234 firefox` or creating a new local user and logging on as that user? It would be interesting to know why your private tab isn't working.
      - tom_mellior 6y ago
        What did you try on Bloomberg? Opening bloomberg.com and clicking at the biggest, most central story shows me the whole story in full, both in Firefox and in Chrome in private mode. But clicking a random story in the sidebar (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-27/saudi-arabia-sends-blue-ammonia-to-japan-in-world-first-shipment https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-27/saudi-ara...) only gets me an abbreviated version in both browsers. Interestingly, it even customizes the message: "You're in private mode." in Firefox, "You're browsing incognito." in Chromium.
jimnotgym 6y ago
The Guardian is free to read all of the time. The yellow boxes st the bottom ask you to subscribe but don't require it

autarch 6y ago

There are still sites doing this. Bloomberg is one I can think of, since I've deleted my cookies (and other local storage) for that site more than once, with success.

ziml77 6y ago
I highly doubt Bloomberg cares enough. They make their money selling terminal subscriptions and data feeds for obscene amounts.
- Symbiote 6y ago
  Sites are gradually tightening up on workarounds like clearing cookies. Simply opening Bloomberg nwes in a private tab now fails (I think it's a bug that the site can detect a private tab is used).
  - toyg 6y ago
    Others are actually getting looser though, because they fear losing google juice. I know of a massive European newspaper that just leaves the entire content of paywalled items simply hidden in the DOM.
  - bloak 6y ago
    It worked for me just now, with Chrome. If you're on Linux, have you tried `mkdir /tmp/t234 && HOME=/tmp/t234 firefox` or creating a new local user and logging on as that user? It would be interesting to know why your private tab isn't working.
    - tom_mellior 6y ago
      What did you try on Bloomberg? Opening bloomberg.com and clicking at the biggest, most central story shows me the whole story in full, both in Firefox and in Chrome in private mode. But clicking a random story in the sidebar (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-27/saudi-arabia-sends-blue-ammonia-to-japan-in-world-first-shipment https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-27/saudi-ara...) only gets me an abbreviated version in both browsers. Interestingly, it even customizes the message: "You're in private mode." in Firefox, "You're browsing incognito." in Chromium.

jimnotgym 6y ago

The Guardian is free to read all of the time. The yellow boxes st the bottom ask you to subscribe but don't require it