A Paywall is a program which stops a user from accessing the data or content on websites until you pay for that. Bypass Paywalls is a Firefox add-on which breaks that wall of reading limited content. It helps you to access the entire website without subscription or login. You must have visited many websites, such as Quora, New York Times, Medium etc., which do not allow you to go through the content completely without subscribing. This makes us stand far away to get the complete knowledge about an article. In this case, Bypass Paywalls simply resolves this.
It turns off the wall so that readers can have the transparency of content. Seeing the half content or pop-up of subscriptions nags us a lot. Some websites do not even let us read one complete article. This Firefox add-on has the key to unlock those restricted data.
Before this add-on when I went through few Article on Medium.com, it let me read 3 articles for free. After that, it asked me to sign up. See below.
After using this add-on, I was able to read articles without subscription. See below.
Types of paywall
There are two types of paywalls usually experienced by website visitors, Hard paywalls and soft paywalls. Both work in opposition to each other.
Hard paywalls does not allow visitors to read content for free. It prompts the user to get the subscription or to sign in before accessing any content on websites whether it is free or paid.
Soft paywall also known as metered paywall provides free content in order to read some free articles without subscription. This is the best option to know if the content on the website is as per your needs. Thereafter, you can pay to access more content if you find it appropriate for yourself.
The other walls that become an object of an obstacle are Data wall, Survey wall and Share wall.
- Data wall asks for details of the user to get them content.
- Similarly, Survey wall also does not let us access the website without conditions. You have to answer some questions before getting the content.
- Another wall is the share wall which asks user to share the content across social media only then you can access the content.
Although, not many websites place cookies but some selected websites on Bypass Paywalls add cookies on the users device. Thus, the users have to make sure that they uncheck these websites on the pop up which appears when clicking the add-on icon as seen in the below screenshot. Otherwise they will find themselves logged out on every visit.
The same options will be visible on accessing the Options page of this Firefox add-on. So, you have a choice to either use pop-up or Options page for this.
Bypass Paywalls in Firefox works incredibly as an add-on. It bypasses paywall of more than 50 sites as mentioned below:
- The Spectator
- Corriere Della Sera
- Haaretz
- The Age
- The Business Journals
- The Japan Times
- Medium
- New Statesman
- Bloomberg
- The Globe and Mail
- Harvard Business Review
- Inc.com
- Wired
- Nikkei Asian Review
- The Advocate
- Towards Data Science
- Hartford Courant
- The Sydney Morning Herald
- Le Temps
- The New York Times
- Los Angeles Times
- Sun Sentinel
- MIT Technology Review
- Financial Times
- The Seattle Times
- Quora
- Vanity Fair
- Orlando Sentinel
- The Toronto Star
- The Washington Post
- The Boston Globe
- Baltimore Sun
- Medscape
- Crain’s Chicago Business
- The Marker
- OC Register
- The Economist
- Chicago Tribune
- Het Financieele Dagblad
- Daily Press
- The Wall Street Journal
- Glassdoor
- Business Insider
- The Nation
- Hacked
- The Mercury News
- Barron’s
- Examiner
- Denver Post
- The Morning Call
- The New Yorker
- Caixin
- NRC
This Firefox add-on works amazingly as it allows website visitors to read content without any restrictions.
In brief
This Bypass paywalls add-on helps readers or website visitors to access the content available on website without any distractions of signing up or pop up of subscription. Isn’t it great that Bypass Paywalls lets you go through many of your favorite articles and permits to read content behind that wall? So, get this Firefox add-on and enjoy reading articles on your favorite websites.
