Paywalls

Some of my sources are paid, and some links I provide may lead you to paywalled, or otherwise inaccessible items. I’ll often try to use “gift” links, but they’re not always available, and sometimes they expire.

There may be steps you can take.

Geofencing

Geofencing is a website restricting access to a geographical area, usually a specific country. Some errors you get will be clear (“not available in your area”), some not so much (generic “permission denied”). I have no way to know that an item is blocked for you, since I was able to see it myself.

My recommendation is to try using a VPN to make it look like you’re in the news site’s country (an impractical solution for most), or using some of the techniques below (particularly #3, #4, & #5 below) to get to it another way.

Paywalls

There are two flavors of paywall:

  • Access to all content is restricted to paying subscribers.
  • A limited number of “free views” is made available, after which access is restricted.

I understand the need for access restriction and funding necessary to provide quality content. I also understand not everyone can, or would, subscribe to access just one article.

Accessing the inaccessible

So with those conflicting priorities in mind, here are four workarounds:

  1. Open the link using a different browser. Most free view tracking is done using cookies, and those are separate for each browser you use. For example, if you use Chrome, try Firefox (or Edge, or Opera, or any of a zillion different browsers) and you’ll often get a new set of free views. This doesn’t always work, but it works often enough to be useful.
  2. Open the link using “in private” or “incognito” mode. Same idea: incognito browsing doesn’t save cookies, so when you fire it up you’re starting with a clean slate. Same caveat: this doesn’t always work, but it works often enough to be useful.
  3. Search news.google.com for keywords taken from the title or quote to find an alternate source you can access. This is how I find alternate sources myself.
  4. archive.ph can sometimes work.
  5. 12ft.io can sometimes work.

Paying for content

I put my money where my mouth is: I’m a paid subscriber to several online news sources. I feel funding a free press is important.

I also understand that not every can, and that not everyone would subscribe to everything I do.

But at least there are a few approaches you can try above.