Personally I use a good, ol' simple browser (QTweb) with javascript disabled to browse/read HN, then I try opening the linked articles with it.
If it works, it works, if it doesn't (not only because of paywalls or similar but often because the site has been overcomplicated/overengineered and/or uses some new features that QTweb doesn't support) I may try with a more "recent" browser.
Of course with javascript disabled a number of things (like dinamically loading images) won't work and you won't be experiencing the full design of the site, but as long as the article text is readable, that does it for me most of the times.