4 ms·
Instapaper is no different than web browsers that reformat pages according to the user's wishes by changing fonts and colors, hiding ads or saving to an archive
by DerekL 14y ago
Instapaper is no different than web browsers that reformat pages according to the user's wishes by changing fonts and colors, hiding ads or saving to an archive. The Instapaper server only saves the URL, title and maybe some other metadata; it does not store the contents of pages.
- ksherlock 14y agoIt does store the web page content. Among other reasons, it gets around paywalls, logins, etc. by uploading the page when you click your bookmarklet.
- DerekL 14y agoOkay, I didn't know that.
- ralfd 14y agoI think ksherlock is wrong. Marco explained somewhere that he doesn't store for a url the content only once (like the url serves as a hash), but stores the content of a page for every account uniquely (his database is somewhat 200 GB). I also did find this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2336332 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2336332 > Instapaper honors access. If you have access to that Article it will save it, if not then you won't get it.
- ralfd 14y agoBut only when one has already access, doesn't it? When one hits a paywall without access and clicks the bookmarklet it would only show the login page in instapaper.
- jcurbo 14y agoThis is not correct; the bookmarklet sends along the contents of your browser at the time you click it. Thus it can get around paywalls without having to have your login info. I believe Marco has said on his podcast that URLs added via the API do get slurped from his servers, but I'm not 100% certain on that.