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Comment by ktpsns | Hacker News Reader

I got the feeling that these features should be part of a browser extension the same way as there are AdBlock extensions. I guess the reason it is not is "personal preference" of the author, or is there some technical reason?

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> these features should be part of a browser extension

You mean like Bypass Paywall Clean?

https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-chrome-clean

Is there a Firefox version?

https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clea...

It used to be in mozillas addon store, but they removed it, so have to install via dev mode

Or you can load this uBO filterlist, which should basically do the same thing as the extension

    https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-clean-filters/-/raw/main/bpc-paywall-filter.txt

That's why I like reading HN comments. Thanks for that filter link

No need for dev mode - signed XPIs are avaiable from releases: https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clea....

Ah you're right, I confused it with Chrome

You don't even need to install it, just add it as an import line to UO, Google how. Game changing.

What's UO? This would've been a great comment with a little more info :)

https://ublockorigin.com/

After install go to "Filter Lists" > Import ... > and add the url of the "list"... which is actually from a different repo: https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-clean-filter...

Note: this apparently works for fewer sites than the linked extension.

Thank you for the insight. I usually hesitate to install add-ons, but now I can avoid that step entirely based on your advice.

> Note: this apparently works for fewer sites than the linked extension.

Still, this is great to know because it can then be used on Firefox mobile.

Addons are coming for firefox mobile. If you can't wait, you can install any addon you want with firefox nightly.

Does not work so well anymore. Better use a bookmarklet

javascript:location.href='https://archive.is/?run=1&url=%27+encodeURIComponent(documen...

Not sure what happened here but the end of that is chopped off. Trying to fix it:

  javascript:location.href='https://archive.is/?run=1&url=%27+encodeURIComponent(document.location.href)+%27'

Not sure this is a good solution considering archive's fuckery

What did archive do?

There's a few links in sibling comments. But basically they are collecting some identifying data to try to optimize load times, but if they don't get that data they just reject the request instead of allowing for longer load times. Archive promises that they throw away that data and aren't tracking users but I mean why rely on trust? And as others point out, there are weird aspects of the code too so even if you trust what about mistakes? And btw, it isn't just cloudflare that's affected.

that's the story Cloudflare wants you to buy.

Archive is intentionally violating copyright, and needs to know which country you're coming from, so they can serve you content from a country that isn't yours. they need that information to protect the service and keep it running.

I definitely am not buying that, especially since it isn't just Cloudflare users being affected, including Quad9, or the wiki[1] which claims the issue was resolved. Note that I can't reach them from cloudflare or even with mullvad's DNS. Not giving me faith tbh. See the linked thread and the links from there for more info[0]. And I trust Cloudflare way more than one guy who users are having difficulties with answering emails[2]. Sure, maybe he gets too many and is only one person, but that gives me less faith that things are being done correctly. Or see weird comments from this hn thread[3]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38171524

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive.today#Cloudflare_DNS_a...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/12trawt/has_an...

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37009598

This works quite well and probably covers 90% of my needs. For the other 10% I still use archive.today or 12ft (RIP).

It's a shame Google won't let this addon be in the store.

I don't know for sure, but I would imagine there are more severe actions taken against circumventing paid material (content behind a paywall) than there is for free content supplemented by advertisements..

Edit : The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) prohibits circumventing an effective technological means of control that restricts access to a copyrighted work. I guess that would apply here.

Given how liberally the DMCA is applied, you definitely don't want to be on the wrong side of that.

I remember some guy that wrote a WoW bot and got sued using the DMCA, with the argument that his bot was circumventing the anti-cheat and the anti-cheat could be seen as a 'mechanism protecting copyrighted material', because it was safeguarding access to the game servers, the servers were generating parts of the game world (such as sounds) dynamically, and those were under copyright... Wild stuff.

As far a I know section 1201 has never been prosecuted. Distribution of the copyrighted material is what's focused on.

This seems a good summary of the case I was talking about:

https://massivelyop.com/2020/02/28/lawful-neutral-cheating-c...

It happened to Honorbuddy, a very advanced bot for World Of Warcraft made by a German company. The argument in relation to DMCA was that the bot was circumventing warden, the games anti-cheat system. The legal battle was long and they ultimately had to strip many features of the bot, until the company went under.

Good old section 1201. The EFF has been fighting it for a while, but hasn't had much success unfortunately.

Isn't anything that can be circumvented ineffective?

Or, looking at it the other way, if you put a small sticker that says "do not do X" and even one person follows that, isn't that therefore an "effective" method?

> The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) prohibits circumventing an effective technological means of control that restricts access to a copyrighted work. I guess that would apply here.

It doesn't if you're not in the US.

Kim Dotcom believed so too, didn't fare too well.

Megaupload did business in the US, they had a lot of servers in the US. IIRC that was the basis for his arrest: the crime took place on US territory.

12ft.io and vercel have servers in US, so what's your argument here?

there is below extension for this purpose which I know of, I think there can be many more if we search for them

chrome and firefox extension for removing paywall: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome

This extension is asking for a lot of permissions it shouldn't ask for

If you want an alternative that only requests permissions for sites with paywalls, this one is better: https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clea...

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