How to remove a paywall in 2022?

With thousands of different news websites there is no single method that will work for all of them. As such, in this article we discuss 7 different methods to get around a paywall.

What is a paywall?

A paywall is used by news websites to hide content on a page. So, for example, if you open up a website and a page appears that blocks the article, that is the paywall. As the name suggests, the website wants you to pay to remove it. However, there are other methods.

What paywalls can be removed?

The two main types of paywalls that websites use are soft paywalls and hard paywalls.

• Soft paywalls:

These paywalls work by mainly covering the article. However, the article is still on the pay you simply need to remove the element blocking. There are many different ways of blocking the article including using an HTML element to block the article or using CSS and javascript to remove some of the text.

• Hard Paywalls:

These are paywalls that cover the article, but the article is not on the page. These websites use javascript to first check if the user has paid and then add the article after.

Only soft paywalls can be removed. This is because the article is on the website so the only challenge is being able to uncover it. With a hard paywall the article is not on the page so there is no way to get it.

Why do websites use soft paywalls rather than hard paywalls?

The main reason is to rank higher in google searches. For example, google ranks articles by searching the article and ranking it based on the content. As such, news websites want to show as much of the article to google as possible. However, with a hard paywall, google cannot see the article so the ranking becomes worse for that page, but with a soft paywall google can see the article so it knows more about the article and will rank it higher in the search.

The issue with using soft paywalls is that the user has to deal with being recommended an article that he has to pay to read.

The second reason is some new websites have a limit on the number of articles a person can read for free. So, they want to have the articles on the website but start blocking you after you read more than you are allowed to.

7 Ways to Remove a Paywall.

1). Bypass Paywalls Chrome Extension.

This extension is an open-source project to make an extension that can remove the paywalls for almost all of the major news websites. The chrome extension can be found here: Link.

Firstly, due to Google's policies, the chrome extension is not available on the Chrome Web Store

Steps to download Bypass Paywalls Chrome Extension:

1). Go to the link and code button. When you click it there should be a drop-down menu. At the bottom of the menu click the Download Zip button. This would download the chrome extension to your computer.

2). Next you will want to open chrome and go to the manage extensions page. You can do this by clicking the puzzle icon then clicking manage extensions or by typing chrome://extensions into the search bar.

3). Then in the top right corner of the page you will see a button titled Developer Mode. Make sure that developer mode is enabled. The selector should be blue.

4). Unzip the file that you download. On some computers, the file might automatically unzip itself. But if not you can double-click the .zip file to unzip it. Once you unzip it you should see a folder titled: bypass-paywalls-chrome-clean-magnolia1234-master.

5). In the manage extensions page on chrome with developer mode enabled you should see a Load unpacked button. Click the button and find where the folder bypass-paywalls-chrome-clean-magnolia1234-master. Click on the folder and hit select.

6). This will load the extension and show you the options that you can change. You can close the two tabs that pop up as the default settings are ideal. Now you can go to any new website and the paywall should be automatically removed.

2). Using Web Archive Websites.

Many internet projects try to archive as many web pages as possible to preserve the internet. One benefit is that when the news article is archived it is saved without a paywall. As such by finding an archived version of the article you can see it without a paywall.

The best one that I have found is Archive.Today. Found at this URL: https://archive.ph. To use this website, copy the URL of the article and paste it into the search bar titled: I want to search the archive for saved snapshots. The top search bar is used to save the URL so make sure that you are using the correct one.

The second best option is called the Wayback Machine. Found at this URL: https://web.archive.org. To use this website you just need to get the URL of the article and paste it into the search bar. Then you will see a calendar showing you all of the times that URL was archived. You will want to find the most recent one and click it.

The last web archive is called Google Web Cache.This will then take you to an archived version of the article. The second way to use google cache is to find the article in google search then on the search tab click the three dots next to the URL and then click the button that says cached. Google has a really good archive but I have noticed that it glitches sometimes and does not work. As such I would recommend using the other two first and if those do not work then try the google cache.

3). Paywall Removing Websites

Remove Paywall (#shameless plug) and other sites such as 12 ft ladder at URL:Link. Use a lot of different methods to find the unblocked version of the article. Remove Paywall first checks different web archives to find the article. Then if that does not work it may try to disable javascript or clear cache to get the article without a paywall. After, it then searches the news website to try and delete the code that creates the paywall. I am not sure exactly how 12ft.io does it but I presume it is similar. As such, you can try to try to use these methods yourself, but using a free website can make it easier and should work for most news websites.

4). Disabling Javascript.

Firstly, it is important to note that some websites may need javascript to work so make sure that you turn it back on after you read the article. On chrome click the three dots on the top right of the browser and go to settings. Then go to privacy and security and click site settings. After, scroll down to Content and click on the JavaScript button. Finally, make sure that the button titled Don't allow sites to use Javascript is clicked. This might work on a few sites however it is easy for websites to check if you have javascript enabled or not. As such you might get warnings such as: Please make sure that javascript is enabled to use this website.

5). Clearing Cache

To clear cache open chrome and click the three buttons at the top right corner. Then hover over More Tools and click Clear Browsing Data. Make sure that the time range at the top is set to All time and that Cached images and files are checked. Lastly, hit clear data and you should be done. This method works well for websites that have a limit. So if you see a message like: “you used up your two free articles for this week”, then by clearing the cache you should be able to then see more articles for free. This works as the websites use cookies to track how many articles to see. By deleting the cookies when you clear the cache you reset the tracker and get to see more articles.

6). Changing Browser User-agent.

Changing your user agent can also allow you to unblock a paywall. The idea is that by changing your user agent to that of a google bot, some websites automatically remove their paywall as they do not want Google to crawl a paywall version of their article. To do this on chrome right click the article and press inspect. Then near the bottom there should be a tab called Network conditions. Click on that and scroll down until you see User-agent. Uncheck the box that says: Use browser default. Lastly, underneath the checkbox you should see a dropdown menu. Click that and scroll down until you see Googlebot. There should be multiple either Googlebot Desktop or Googlebot Smartphone and simply select either one depending on what device you are using.

7). Using an Adblocker.

Ad Blockers have the benefit of removing any popups that appear on the website. Mostly these pop-ups are ads but they may also be paywalls. As such, having an adblocker can also be a benefit. One of the best free ad blockers is called uBlock Origin and can be found on the Chrome Webstore at this URL:Link.

Summary

With thousands of news websites and blogs, paywalls are bound to be different. As such, we suggest trying each method and seeing what works best for you. In my experience, the first three methods have worked and the rest can be used if needed. Hopefully, now you will get to enjoy your favorite articles without having to pay or being forced to log in.