/unpaywall

🔓 Web extension for reading articles locked behind paywalls of over 40 german newspapers, e.g. Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, Hamburger Abendblatt & Leipziger Volkszeitung.

Primary LanguageJavaScript

unpaywall Mozilla Add-on

Read articles locked behind paywalls of over 40 german local newspapers.

This extension is provided for educational purposes only. I do not endorse the use of it and strongly encourage you to subscribe to your favourite newspaper and support local journalism.

Supported sites

Why (and how) does this work?!

Madsack (e.g. Leipziger Volkszeitung, Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, Kieler Nachrichten)

Madsack stores the complete article in text form (i.e. without media and formatting) in the source code of the page to enable indexing of paywalled articles in search engines like Google & Co. They also indicate that their article is available for free, presumably to achieve a higher ranking. The Web extension just reads this text and replaces the preview with it.

FUNKE Mediengruppe (e.g. Hamburger Abendblatt, Berliner Morgenpost, Thüringer Allgemeine, Westfalenpost)

The CMS of the FUNKE Mediengruppe uses a solution by Piano, where the content gets removed afterwards. This script is easily blocked and requires no further work.

VRM (e.g. Mittelhessen, Echo Online, Allgemeine Zeitung)

The CMS of the Verlagsgruppe Rhein-Main encrypts the article afterwards. They use a solution of the company LaterPay, whose encryption can be prevented by removing the configuration key used by LaterPay.

DuMont Newsnet (e.g. Kölner Stadtanzeiger & Mitteldeutsche Zeitung)

DuMont Newsnet stores the complete article in text form (i.e. without media and formatting) in the source code of the page to enable indexing of paywalled articles in search engines like Google & Co.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Never introduced. The FAZ has a social media section here, which is linked in their Instagram biography and shall be used to find articles they post about. Articles in this category can be unlocked by adding a ?premium at the end.

This unlock mechanism is currently disabled, but still works fine when applying manually.

Saarbrücker Zeitung

The Saarbrücker Zeitung saves the complete article and replaces it afterwards. Their paywall script is pretty bad and blocked by all common adblockers.

NahverkehrHAMBURG

Introduced in Version 1.1. NahverkehrHAMBURG uses Steady to finance their site. All articles are available for free at release, but will be blocked with a popup after a few days. Only the view is blocked, so Unpaywall removes the element that advertises the paywall.

Lensing Media (e.g. Ruhrnachrichten)

Introduced in Version 1.2/2.0. The CMS of Lensing Media uses a solution by Piano, where the content gets removed afterwards. Blocking this script works fine. Additionally, the content is blurred, but this blur is easily removeable by removing the class of the article object.