I am sure this wasn’t the intended use - but I discovered a useful trick on Android.
Just recently, Google released a Reading Mode app that takes text and removes the clutter, images, etc - and allows you to read in a high contrast easy to view format. There are options on how to toggle it on, but I chose to use the hold volume up/down at the same time.
I was viewing a local paywalled newspaper, and had surpassed my 3 free articles/month. For the heck of it, while the popup blocked me from reading it, I tried the reading mode shortcut. It pulled in all the text and I was able to read the entire story. I then tried another news site and it worked the same way. I even tried some of the big new sites like the Washington Post - and it worked.
I am sure its a bit dependent on how the website is built, but its worth a try if you find yourself running into those paywalls. You lose the photos, but its worth it.
Firefox has had a Reading View feature for a while now. But adding the ‘Bypass Paywalls clean’ filter on ublock origin in Firefox for Windows and Firefox for Android works the best for me. https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-clean-filters
Excellent tip! Pretty stoked to discover how many modern web annoyances can be defeated by OSS!
I have yet to find a paywall I couldn’t bypass. They all work the same way because they need the content to be exposed to be found by crawlers
btw, did 12ft.io work?
12ft.io was bought out and now the big news agencies won’t get bypassed.
I use https://www.removepaywall.com now.
I never tried that but this removes a step and makes it super easy for me. I’ve tried the websites where you enter the address and get a mirror of the article, but it always seemed clunky.
