8 ms·

Bypass Paywalls Clean combines all soft paywall hacks into one neat package

136 points by dddavid 3y ago

BillyTheMage 3y ago
Finally I'll be able to read posts on HN! I know it's "against the rules" or "uninteresting" or whatever to comment about this sort of thing on HN posts, but I'm getting real tired of 3/4 of the HN posts being paid bullshit I'm not allowed to read. Even the archived links people post in the comments are inaccessible because CloudFlare. I fail to see how paid articles adhere to the HN spirit of "interesting discussions" or whatever the exact rule is. These paid articles are more detrimental to "interest" than angry political yelling.
- gruez 3y ago
  >Even the archived links people post in the comments are inaccessible because CloudFlare. Actually it's not caused by cloudflare on two counts: cloudflare actually isn't a source of the captcha, the site author copied cloudflare's captcha page; and the site blocks cloudflare dns users because it doesn't send EDNS information.
  - josephcsible 3y ago
    > cloudflare actually isn't a source of the captcha, the site author copied cloudflare's captcha page Why hasn't Cloudflare sued for trademark infringement?
    - gruez 3y ago
      If you look carefully it doesn't have cloudflare's logo or claim it's from cloudflare. It just vaguely looks like cloudflare's page that most people assume it's the cloudflare captcha.
- LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
  I'm so tired of reading this over and over again. Do you need/use cloudflare for anything else besides their DNS? If not you can simply switch to https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls/ https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls/
- sexy_seedbox 3y ago
  Use Quad9 DNS
- tzs 3y ago
  > I fail to see how paid articles adhere to the HN spirit of "interesting discussions" or whatever the exact rule is. These paid articles are more detrimental to "interest" than angry political yelling. For probably 90% of the paywalled articles the discussion is interesting even if you don't read the article. First, the discussions often diverge from what is covered in the article. Second, even the parts of the discussion that haven't diverged often include enough context to figure out broadly what the article was saying.
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  Many times, some helpful person posts a comment with a link to the same article, sans paywall, on archive.org.
  - markx2 3y ago
    And if they do not, use this bookmarklet javascript:void(open('https://archive.today/?run=1&url='+encodeURIComponent(document.location)))
    - gxvwb 3y ago
      The archive.today method has always worked best for me. I made a Firefox Add-On to do it automatically for sites I encounter regularly: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/surmount/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/surmount/
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  > paid bullshit Why do you want to read bullshit?
Emma_Goldman 3y ago
Does anyone know what if anything is substantively different between the original bypass paywalls[1] and bypass paywalls clean? The implication, obviously, is that the original is unclean. [1]https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
- jdaw0 3y ago
  The main difference AFAIK is that it allows a custom site list, a feature the original version dropped at some point. I do not know why the distinction is clean vs an implied unclean
  - fwn 3y ago
    > I do not know why the distinction is clean vs an implied unclean The Chrome version of the original extension (other than the Firefox version) embedded Google analytics. edit: looked it up. Source: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/issues/293 https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/issues/...
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  I changed from that one to the clean one, from memory because it stopped working well. The clean version seems to be updated constantly.
- eviks 3y ago
  The unclean part is referring to the presence of Google Analytics in the other extension https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/blob/c66fb6d18ab35488ee0f7c14011b9eb1d9b764f6/src/js/background.js#L552 https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/blob/c6...
- bjord 3y ago
  Yeah, bypass paywalls clean both removes google analytics and seems to be updated more regularly (or it was when I switched a while ago, that could be different at this point).
- 3y ago
AniseAbyss 3y ago
[dead]
INTPenis 3y ago
It says "Why do paywalls exist", of course to elicit payment for content, that's obvious. But what is less obvious is that they exist because we're centralizing a lot of information in a few places, and these sites require a lot of funding to operate. In the age of dirt cheap cloud hosting we still depend on these huge sites for our content. I know it sounds like a massive simplification, and I don't claim to have the details on how to improve the situation, but I think we need more decentralized content creation. Often when I hit a paywall i will simply Google the topic and sure enough there is an independent blog with the same story. That blog costs a fraction to run compared to the big news site I first landed on. Let's spread the information out more.
- bjord 3y ago
  I honestly have a really hard time believing that the reason newspapers are so expensive to run these days is due to web hosting costs—I would imagine that most of their budget is spent on staffing (though I couldn't find a budget breakdown with a quick search, so I'm only guessing here). As a side question: what are you reading about that independent blogs consistently offer the same quality of reporting as major news organizations?
  - culi 3y ago
    > I honestly have a really hard time believing that the reason newspapers are so expensive to run these days is due to web hosting costs All those metrics and analytics and anti-adblock services can really add up. The largest assets on an average, e.g., NYTimes article are 2mb+ scripts; not images
    - hulitu 3y ago
      > The largest assets on an average, e.g., NYTimes article are 2mb+ scripts; not images So, in the end, the actual information almost does not exist. /s
- NoboruWataya 3y ago
  Quality reporting isn't free (I know, I sound like a paywall myself, but it's true). It involves people traveling to warzones or disaster zones to get a view on the ground, or spending weeks chasing down and investigating leads, or getting interviews with important people or leaks from insiders. In a good news organisation, that is what the paywall is paying for (no doubt there are many bad news organisations that try to charge you for low-effort rubbish - nothing new there). A lot of significant news stories are broken by these reporters. If you get your news from independent blogs then I suspect either: * they are rehashing the content from the paid journalists (which is fine, but not really a sustainable model if everyone does it) * the news is not all that thoroughly researched * the person actually has put a lot of time and effort to deliver you in-depth news for free, in which case, you have to ask yourself why. To be clear, I use paywalls as well, but it's not as simple as saying the tech is cheaper now so there should be no reason to ever pay for news. If no one in society paid for news we'd all be worse off.
_fat_santa 3y ago
I can say from personal experience that the extension used to work almost perfectly up until recently. Paywalled sites have started to catch on and are starting to place their articles on entirely different pages than the "preview" page so there's nothing to "bypass".
- culi 3y ago
  I have only had incredible success with this extension, but you need to use Firefox. NYTimes articles always work seamlessly for example
- AniseAbyss 3y ago
  [dead]
Triangle9349 3y ago
or use same paywalls filter list for adblockers: https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-clean-filters https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-clean-filter...
wkat4242 3y ago
It's a great plugin and I use it a lot. But it's very hard to install. Mozilla goes out of their way to keep it out of the store and on Android you can't even sideload it :(

136 points by dddavid 3y ago

Finally I'll be able to read posts on HN! I know it's "against the rules" or "uninteresting" or whatever to comment about this sort of thing on HN posts, but I'm getting real tired of 3/4 of the HN posts being paid bullshit I'm not allowed to read. Even the archived links people post in the comments are inaccessible because CloudFlare. I fail to see how paid articles adhere to the HN spirit of "interesting discussions" or whatever the exact rule is. These paid articles are more detrimental to "interest" than angry political yelling.

gruez 3y ago
>Even the archived links people post in the comments are inaccessible because CloudFlare. Actually it's not caused by cloudflare on two counts: cloudflare actually isn't a source of the captcha, the site author copied cloudflare's captcha page; and the site blocks cloudflare dns users because it doesn't send EDNS information.
- josephcsible 3y ago
  > cloudflare actually isn't a source of the captcha, the site author copied cloudflare's captcha page Why hasn't Cloudflare sued for trademark infringement?
  - gruez 3y ago
    If you look carefully it doesn't have cloudflare's logo or claim it's from cloudflare. It just vaguely looks like cloudflare's page that most people assume it's the cloudflare captcha.
LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
I'm so tired of reading this over and over again. Do you need/use cloudflare for anything else besides their DNS? If not you can simply switch to https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls/ https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls/
sexy_seedbox 3y ago
Use Quad9 DNS
tzs 3y ago
> I fail to see how paid articles adhere to the HN spirit of "interesting discussions" or whatever the exact rule is. These paid articles are more detrimental to "interest" than angry political yelling. For probably 90% of the paywalled articles the discussion is interesting even if you don't read the article. First, the discussions often diverge from what is covered in the article. Second, even the parts of the discussion that haven't diverged often include enough context to figure out broadly what the article was saying.
shiroiuma 3y ago
Many times, some helpful person posts a comment with a link to the same article, sans paywall, on archive.org.
- markx2 3y ago
  And if they do not, use this bookmarklet javascript:void(open('https://archive.today/?run=1&url='+encodeURIComponent(document.location)))
  - gxvwb 3y ago
    The archive.today method has always worked best for me. I made a Firefox Add-On to do it automatically for sites I encounter regularly: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/surmount/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/surmount/
carlosjobim 3y ago
> paid bullshit Why do you want to read bullshit?

Emma_Goldman 3y ago

Does anyone know what if anything is substantively different between the original bypass paywalls[1] and bypass paywalls clean? The implication, obviously, is that the original is unclean. [1]https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome

jdaw0 3y ago
The main difference AFAIK is that it allows a custom site list, a feature the original version dropped at some point. I do not know why the distinction is clean vs an implied unclean
- fwn 3y ago
  > I do not know why the distinction is clean vs an implied unclean The Chrome version of the original extension (other than the Firefox version) embedded Google analytics. edit: looked it up. Source: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/issues/293 https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/issues/...
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
I changed from that one to the clean one, from memory because it stopped working well. The clean version seems to be updated constantly.
eviks 3y ago
The unclean part is referring to the presence of Google Analytics in the other extension https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/blob/c66fb6d18ab35488ee0f7c14011b9eb1d9b764f6/src/js/background.js#L552 https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/blob/c6...
bjord 3y ago
Yeah, bypass paywalls clean both removes google analytics and seems to be updated more regularly (or it was when I switched a while ago, that could be different at this point).
3y ago

AniseAbyss 3y ago

[dead]

INTPenis 3y ago

It says "Why do paywalls exist", of course to elicit payment for content, that's obvious. But what is less obvious is that they exist because we're centralizing a lot of information in a few places, and these sites require a lot of funding to operate. In the age of dirt cheap cloud hosting we still depend on these huge sites for our content. I know it sounds like a massive simplification, and I don't claim to have the details on how to improve the situation, but I think we need more decentralized content creation. Often when I hit a paywall i will simply Google the topic and sure enough there is an independent blog with the same story. That blog costs a fraction to run compared to the big news site I first landed on. Let's spread the information out more.

bjord 3y ago
I honestly have a really hard time believing that the reason newspapers are so expensive to run these days is due to web hosting costs—I would imagine that most of their budget is spent on staffing (though I couldn't find a budget breakdown with a quick search, so I'm only guessing here). As a side question: what are you reading about that independent blogs consistently offer the same quality of reporting as major news organizations?
- culi 3y ago
  > I honestly have a really hard time believing that the reason newspapers are so expensive to run these days is due to web hosting costs All those metrics and analytics and anti-adblock services can really add up. The largest assets on an average, e.g., NYTimes article are 2mb+ scripts; not images
  - hulitu 3y ago
    > The largest assets on an average, e.g., NYTimes article are 2mb+ scripts; not images So, in the end, the actual information almost does not exist. /s
NoboruWataya 3y ago
Quality reporting isn't free (I know, I sound like a paywall myself, but it's true). It involves people traveling to warzones or disaster zones to get a view on the ground, or spending weeks chasing down and investigating leads, or getting interviews with important people or leaks from insiders. In a good news organisation, that is what the paywall is paying for (no doubt there are many bad news organisations that try to charge you for low-effort rubbish - nothing new there). A lot of significant news stories are broken by these reporters. If you get your news from independent blogs then I suspect either: * they are rehashing the content from the paid journalists (which is fine, but not really a sustainable model if everyone does it) * the news is not all that thoroughly researched * the person actually has put a lot of time and effort to deliver you in-depth news for free, in which case, you have to ask yourself why. To be clear, I use paywalls as well, but it's not as simple as saying the tech is cheaper now so there should be no reason to ever pay for news. If no one in society paid for news we'd all be worse off.

_fat_santa 3y ago

I can say from personal experience that the extension used to work almost perfectly up until recently. Paywalled sites have started to catch on and are starting to place their articles on entirely different pages than the "preview" page so there's nothing to "bypass".

culi 3y ago
I have only had incredible success with this extension, but you need to use Firefox. NYTimes articles always work seamlessly for example
AniseAbyss 3y ago
[dead]

Triangle9349 3y ago

or use same paywalls filter list for adblockers: https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-clean-filters https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-clean-filter...

wkat4242 3y ago

It's a great plugin and I use it a lot. But it's very hard to install. Mozilla goes out of their way to keep it out of the store and on Android you can't even sideload it :(