Getting around News Paywalls - All Sites - (WSJ, Forbes)

Finance
#1

Wiki:

Per-Site Recommendations

They now detect Incognito Mode and prevent it from working. The solution is to remove cookies for bostonglobe.com and then reload the page. This will get you 3 free articles again. Rinse and repeat.

Chrome instructions:

Click on the circle’d i to the left of the URL in the address bar. Tooltip says “view site information”
In the menu that appears, the first item is Cookies with a link below it, for example “112 in use”. Click the link.
Scroll down to bostonglobe.com, highlight it, and click remove.
Exit and reload the page.
Advanced option: Rather than Remove. Click Block. Go to the Blocked Tab and select “Clear on Exit”. This will just delete the cookie every time you exit. If you block the cookie entirely you’ll hit the Incognito Mode detection page.

Browser Add-Ons - For Firefox use “bypasspaywalls” exension

Original Post:

I find the WSJ to have lots great content, however the site has become heavily paywalled. The old trick of copying and pasting the title of an article into google and clicking through has either been eliminated completely or is limited to such a tiny number of articles, it’s no longer of value.

There is a way to get around the paywall for all articles with no limits. WSJ considers links to articles from Facebook to be advertising, and allows full access. Next time you find a WSJ article you want to read, simply paste the following address BEFORE the address of the paywalled article in your URL bar:

http://facebook.com/l.php?u=

Personally, I have the above text saved as a link on my bookmark bar so I can just right click, copy, then paste it before the WSJ article’s address. You DO NOT need a Facebook account for this trick to work.

Example:

Original paywalled WSJ story (you may have access to the original story if you haven’t been reading WSJ in awhile) :

Paywall workaround:
http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-harley-davidsons-ceo-thinks-his-john-deere-tractor-has-therapeutic-powers-1506445727

23 Likes
Stock "Price Targets" and Buy/Hold/Sell Ratings
#2

Nice! It seems to work a bit faster than https://archive.is/

1 Like
#3

Hmmm, does not work for me. Clicking on your paywall workaround (or copying the full link) takes me to a FB alert that tells me I am leaving FB, and asks if I want to follow the link. Hit Follow and I’m at the WSJ paywall page asking me to sign in.

#4

This one is sometimes useful:

http://cachedview.com

1 Like
#5

Thanks, that was worth the admission fee. I gave up on the WSJ when pasting the headline in Google quit working.

1 Like
#6

This is a great tip!!! Very useful

1 Like
#7

Now we need a Forbes site tip. When I click on links through Google News it always ends up taking me to the Forbes homepage or some other generic page and not the linked article…

#8

I don’t know how this works, but this extension works great https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bypasspaywalls/ (firewall only) the chrome version got shutdown

1 Like
#9

Archive.is works for Forbes

2 Likes
#10

Also, if you Google the headline you may find the version of the article on Yahoo or Fox Business (via Dow Jones Newswire). Your brokerage firm, i.e. Merrill Edge, may also have access to Dow Jones Newswire.

1 Like
#11

Download this extension: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5mixvuti1z98bvo/1.0.3_0.crx?dl=0

Enable “Developer mode” in Chrome extensions. Then click “Load unpacked extension…” and find the file.

This extension is called Bypass and gets you through WSJ and a ton of other paywalls. No longer hosted on the chrome store so I’ve kept a local copy for myself.

1 Like
#12

Boston Globe / Boston.com Articles

They now detect Incognito Mode and prevent it from working. The solution is to remove cookies for bostonglobe.com and then reload the page. This will get you 3 free articles again. Rinse and repeat.

Chrome instructions:

  • Click on the circle’d i to the left of the URL in the address bar. Tooltip says “view site information”
  • In the menu that appears, the first item is Cookies with a link below it, for example “112 in use”. Click the link.
  • Scroll down to bostonglobe.com, highlight it, and click remove.
  • Exit and reload the page.

Advanced option: Rather than Remove. Click Block. Go to the Blocked Tab and select “Clear on Exit”. This will just delete the cookie every time you exit. If you block the cookie entirely you’ll hit the Incognito Mode detection page.

3 Likes
#13

Trusting someone on the internet with something like this is a sure way to get your computer broken. No offense, just a friendly warning :slight_smile:

#14

I know, I know. But fortune favors the bold.

I’ve been a part of FW since 2003 so not looking to screw people over here.

1 Like
#15

I found a signed version for Firefox here: https://bypasspaywalls.weebly.com/

2 Likes
#16

Thanks. Moved to wiki!

1 Like
#17

Yeah, google just killed this off anyway - news.

#18

Sweet! Thanks for this.

Have you found one for WaPo?

#19

WaPo allows full access to anyone who has an email address than ends in .edu. Before I acquired an edu address, I was able to view articles by manually blocking certain scripts on the WaPo website through adblock plus, but I don’t recall which ones. It was a trial and error process.

#20

Thanks. I’m using the .edu for now but I’ve graduated & I’m not sure how much longer it will work. Just thought there might be another way. :slight_smile: