Friday, May 3, 2013

Wall Street Journal and my War on Paywalls

SpoilerIf you don't care about the story, and you just want the Wall Street Journal articles for free, drag the link below into your bookmarks toolbar (by holding down the left mouse button and moving it up there), and click on it whenever you're on a WSJ.com article that is asking you to pay.

After creating a bookmarklet earlier this week which cracked the New York Times paywall, it occurred to me that I wasn't being fair.  After all, what did the New York Times ever do to me?  Why was I just targeting them?

So in the interest of fairness, I've decided to target all of them. If you're a newspaper or media outlet with an online (metered) paywall, I'm coming after you :)  UPDATE:  After further consideration, I've decided that such a mission is not only unreasonable, but just too much damn work.

Today's target is the Wall Street Journal.  If you want to read their "for pay" articles for free, just do as you did before:  Hold down the left mouse button on the link at the bottom of this post (it says, 'WSJ Free'), and drag it up to your bookmarks toolbar.  Then, when you're on a Wall Street Journal article which is demanding that you pay, click on that bookmarklet (the link in your toolbar) and the article will magically appear (after about 6 seconds).

Oh, and I'm taking requests.  If there's an online newspaper that you particularly fancy, but they're making you pay for articles after giving you some of them for free (how dare they), then just tell your Uncle Matty here and I'll take care of it as fast as possible.  UPDATE:  After following up on the below request for ESPN Insider (results to be posted soon UPDATE: results now posted), I've decided that it's a hard "no" to all requests.  They take too much time.

Now without further ado, behold, the link (below)...

6 comments:

  1. Matt, could you have a go at UK's The Times. It's not a request, just a suggestion.

    Ta

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm afraid in order to do this, I'd need a subscription (to scan their code). They don't offer a free trial subscription, and I ain't willing to pay for one.

      Delete
  2. looks like the WSJ plugin is not working.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Looks like you're right. I'm afraid I won't be jumping to fix this right now. Too swamped at work, and too many other pet projects on my plate. But in the meantime, just paste the words under the headline in google and you'll find the articles for free.

      Delete
    2. Hi Matt anyway this can be fixed? Woud really appreciate it sir!!!

      Delete