12ft doesn't cut it anymore, any advice on getting past article paywalls
Yeah 12ft doenst seem to work on any sites anymore. Does anyone have any alternatives that work? I’m already familiar with the airplane mode trick but that’s not always fit for purpose.
Simple filterlists, by definition, only work for a short time. Maybe a specific userscript can help. There are also Extensions, which redirect to articles about the same content to sites without paywall, like Unpaywall do, which is maybe the best option.
In Firefox, to use userscripts, you need to install first an Userscript Manage, like Tampermonkey, Violentmonkey, etc. which you find in the Mozilla Store. In Vivaldi it isn’t needed, simply download the script to a folder (don’t delete it) and drag it to the Extension Page in Developer mode in the Browser, to install it directly as an extension.
Eh, no… I meant in the settings in uBlock Origin, which you would already have installed as an addon in your browser of choice. Choose open dashboard, it opens at filter lists and down the bottom is ‘Import’, just below ‘Custom’. Add the url to import, it’ll do its thing and you’ll have a new entry in ‘Custom’. Sorry, don’t know much about Pi-Holes.
This is for a desktop computer. I'm adding in the brackets what I believe are the actions they are taking in the IG video if you don't want to click the link:
"If you're on a website that's forcing you to log in, [right click over the article and select] Inspect Elements, highlight over [the page and select] Delete [and then select] Node."
I have not tried this myself. If you have clearer directions please reply to this comment!
This works for some sites, but honestly it’s easier using the Firefox reading mode on those sites, it basically does the same thing. It only works if the page loads the full articles text behind the pay wall popup which unfortunately not many do.
The archive sites work great, even for WSJ articles. I just checked after I saw your comment saying archive.ph doesn’t work for WSJ articles, and it works fine for archiving WSJ articles.
Which article? That is interesting, I haven’t had that issue yet, but I just started using these archived pages a couple weeks ago so I’m curious about their limits
Okay, thanks. I tested a bunch of articles in duckduckgo and haven’t come across that yet, but I’ll test a cross browsers and see what happens. I’ll pay attention to the fading text.
I’m going to get fired at for saying this, but websites like that are why I keep Brave around as a last resort news backup. Its reader mode didn’t get past FT, but easily did so for the Economist.
(I don’t need education about Brave, but readers can lodge their complaints and do the token rants right here 👇)
12ft.io is a website that allows you to bypass paywalls on websites. Specifically for articles/news. The idea being “show me a 10ft wall and I’ll build a 12ft ladder.” It worked well against a lot of article and news outlet paywalls originally, but as time has gone on more and more sites are starting to show up on it as unable to bypass.
These websites generally only work due to poor website coding. If they properly implemented a paywall, sites like Archive and 12ft would never work because you would actually need to pay for access.
Sites like Archive still seem to work, while 12ft returns empty pages.
I wouldn’t really consider improving their website coding so that people can’t pirate it enshittification.
Enshittification is based around a platform first creating something good for users and then making it good for suppliers and then when they are locked in, reduce quality. You aren’t locked into a news website that you aren’t even paying for, and you aren’t entitled to their products either.
That’s not the issue I am describing. Instead of improving their website code so people cannot pirate it, it seems like they are specifically blocking 12ft. Other workarounds still work.
Since there’s approximately 17,000 Subway Sandwich locations across 100 countries outside the United States I’m gonna say that most people can just imagine 12 (maybe 13 if we assume the 11in subway lawsuit) full size Subway Sandwiches stacked on top of each other.
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