Working Around the Pay Walls

[jesse_the_k]

Metafilter mentioned Lil Nas X in full lilac jumpsuit on the cover of the NYTimes Sunday Magazine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/magazine/lil-nas-x.html

Followed the link and I hit the pay wall: "sign in to your account or subscribe.*"

I do pay for local publications. I won’t pay for the NYTimes because then I’d read the NYTimes and my mental health would plummet.

My workarounds in order of use:

1. Try another browser
2. Wayback Machine
3. Find another archive
4. Use my local library’s subscription

Try Another Browser

Sites use cookies and fingerprinting to count how many times you visit, and these are browser specific. I have five browsers on my laptop, so when my free views are done on Safari, I try again in iCab, Firefox, Brave, or MS Edge.

Wayback Machine

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine** lets anyone save a page view at a particular time. Many people save NYTimes links!

Paste the paywalled link into the form at https://archive.org/web/

You’ll see a monthly calendar — scroll down to the blue spots and click there to get a snapshot.

If WBM doesn’t have it, visit https://archive.today

And paste the link in the lower "I want to search" box.

A Random Archiver

When that fails, I Google the URL. That leads to somebody who loved a piece so much they copied it wholesale. (This is the digital equivalent of reading a discarded newspaper you find on the bus.)

The Library’s NYTimes

And if that fails, I use my city library’s subscription — when I feed my library account number in, I get 24 hour access to the NYT site.

Tell me about your pay-wall tricks!

---

* advertising supported print media for a couple centuries before the net.

** On "Rocky and Bullwinkle," Mr Peabody extracted his fractured history from a mainframe computer called the Way Back Machine

Comments

[peachpai]

I got to the see image for a few seconds before I got smacked with the paywall and it is STUNNING. I might try a workaround because a couple of my friends are big fans!

[jesse_the_k]

TOTALLY STUNNING!

Just in case you've held out so far, here's a working archived copy:

https://web.archive.org/web/20210714204922/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/magazine/lil-nas-x.html

[peachpai]

Ohh that works good, thanks! :D

[walgesang]

This is the digital equivalent of reading a discarded newspaper you find on the bus. I feel like I used to do this in dentist offices! :D

Usually when I hit a paywall I usually just briefly grouse and give up. Good tips!

[jesse_the_k]

On the other hand, it's not like any of us are short on things to read.

[tei]

Turning off JavaScript seems to work for a lot of them, and I’ve installed a little “toggle javascript” button on my Firefox browser for it!

[melannen]

Yes, turning off javascript usually still works for me! It doesn't always work if what I want to see is an image, because for some reason a lot of sites use javascript to load their images, but I could see Lil Nas X in full lilac glory!

(I actually have javascript turned off by default, and have to add any site where I actually want the javascript features to the "allow" list. It is a quite short list. And I almost never see paywalls on news sites.)

[yourlibrarian]

Same -- it doesn't work for all sites though. I've been blocked by the Wall Street Journal and the Times of London, for example. But I often don't realize a site even has paywalls because the JS is off.

That said, there are a number of sites that won't work properly without some JS turned on and it can be an incredibly long list to pick and choose from.

[seascribble]

You still do have to make an account to do these, right? That's the snag for me. I do not WANT an account, NYT. I want to read the one to two articles a month that might be of interest and I am happy to let you have ad revenue for it, but I SHAN'T sign up.

No account needed at all.

[jesse_the_k]

NOPE!

The NYT makes you think you need an account, but you don't. The workarounds don't require you create an account either.

If you want to make an Archive.org account, you can. It's handy if you want to use the Archive to host audio or video for the AO3. Archive.org already host lots of scanned-text books (free for print-impaired readers), as well as wonderful old movies and cookbooks and much more.

[isis]

5. Ask me to send you the article as a gift. (I can send up to 10 articles a month to friends - I'm a subscriber.)

[gloss]

I'm more than happy to share as well, ESPECIALLY if it concerns Lil Nas X.

You're so kind!

[jesse_the_k]

...and TinEye.com claims the stylin' "queer nerd" in your icon is completely unknown. Did you summon them up from a magic cave?

Re: You're so kind!

[gloss]

Oh! No, that's Lil Nas X playing his younger, high-school self in the video for "Sun Goes Down". <3

Re: You're so kind!

[jesse_the_k]

Oh wow ... that video is heartbreaking.

Clearly I need to spend some quality time watching videos and sobbing with relief :,)

Re: You're so kind!

[gloss]

Oh, gosh, I should have included content notes about the video! I assumed you'd seen it, I'm so sorry.

(I really love that guy a LOT 💜 )

Re: You're so kind!

[jesse_the_k]

Good on you for thinking about content notes, but in this case they're not an issue for me. (When I need 'em I pipe up)

I'm looking forward to the music he'll be making for a long time (I hope).

[jesse_the_k]

Awww, thanks!

[jadelennox]

Here are my paywall tricks, in order.

1. Pay. (Actually technically this is a lie, because I pay for the local little paper, the Guardian, and a Jewish Currents, and none of them has a paywall.)
2. Open all tabs where I don't want to be logged in into a discrete Firefox temporary container, by default. This gets most news sites, which allow a few free articles a month, because each temporary container has no cookies.
3. Open the uBlock origin controller, and use </> to disable Javascript and refresh the page with 🔄, which gets past almost all of the remaining paywalls.
4. Log in to via the local library network, which gets me the local papers or the New York Times.
5. Try archive.org, archive.is, and outline.com, in that order.

[jadelennox]

Thanks for improving this post 500%

[jesse_the_k]

...the technical tips are great, and Lil Nas X is OUTSTANDING!

(Do you think there's wire in that gravity-defying hair?)

[jadelennox]

Oh also sometimes I use view source, or reader mode, or disabling CSS.

[azurelunatic]

I sometimes use https://getpocket.com/ and save the article to my account, which usually lets me read it.

Cool cool cool!

[jesse_the_k]

I'm an Instapaper person myself, and I'm used to saving pages with its extension/bookmarklet. But both Instapaper and Pocket now offer a "save this link" option on their front pages, and it seems to work fine.