Publication Paywalls - and How to Bypass Some of Them

 

Just a quick heads up on a useful tool I discovered recently while on a quest to view Medium articles. 

You'll also find an update on my shadow libraries blog which you might find useful if you use these useful repositories.

For those who haven’t come across it, Medium is a blogging platform with a (hitherto!) fairly wide following in the blogging world, where authors can contribute articles, and also receive payment if they are members and are prepared to pay a monthly subscription. Some of these articles are worth reading, but almost all of them remain inaccessible behind a paywall.

As a new user of this platform, I did some research and discovered quickly from other sources that Medium was losing readership and contributors…much in the same way that Blogspot did some time ago, although apparently at a faster rate.  I’m convinced that this is fall-off is because of the paywall and their aggressive marketing messaging about membership subscriptions. I posted 3 'test' blog articles myself more than 3 months ago, and only one of them has achieved a single 'read', suggesting it may not be worth the effort of contributing, particularly if your authoring efforts end up stuck behind a paywall !

It’s interesting to note that some of their recent output includes reports of a study on the effectiveness or otherwise of paywalls…which I noted with some irritation was itself…behind the paywall!

The hard truth of all this is that in our current cost-of-living obsessed world, users are no longer prepared to pay for news, or indeed for most other forms of published output, and certainly think very carefully about committing themselves to monthly subscriptions.

As we’ve seen from the perennial battle between book publishers and the shadow libraries, the internet has ensured that the book publishing model of old is now no longer fit for purpose, and a new one will need to be adopted – I’ve made some suggestions as to how this might be achieved in a previous blog, but it may take some time before the publishing lobby realises the game is up and accepts the inevitable. The same will apply to authored articles in time, I suspect...not good news for those trying to make a living at it, but reality in our cost-of-living obsessed world nevertheless. In the meantime workrounds are necessary to enable access for those not in a position to shell out large sums for subscriptions.

Here’s a paywall bypass method that currently works for Medium articles, and claims also to do so for a range of other news sources.

1)     *  Open Medium.

2)     *  Select the article you wish to read and copy the URL – you’ll need to click the article title first to see the URL appear in the top line of your browser.

3)      * Visit the Freedium website.  It’s a good idea to keep both windows open in parallel in case you want to access a second article.

4)      * Paste the article’s URL into the input box and hit the ‘Unlock’ button.

5)      * Freedium should now generate a copy of the article and display it. You can then either 

a)  a)  Just read it online within Freedium or 

b)  b)  Generate and save a .pdf version to your desktop – to do this click the ‘Download Article’ button just below the Article Title box.

Please note that the method I’ve described works as of mid-October 2026, and applies only to the online version of Freedium accessed via a pc browser. 

The Freedium Github screed indicates that Medium tweaked their output in 2023 such that the old Freedium bypass method failed to work, and the authors devised a new bypass scheme thereafter. How long it will be before Medium or one of the other publishers affected fires the next ‘salvo’ in this particular publication 'battle' is anyone’s guess, so I’d advise ‘making hay while the sun shines’ just in case it’s imminent….

If you prefer using browser extensions, Freedium does offer them for the likes of Chrome and Firefox, but I have to admit I had no success myself with any of these using either browser. If they don't work for you either, try the website link.

Freedium claim that the software works for other publishing outlets, including NY Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg, Reuters, The Economist and FT. Best of luck trying them out if you wish to….

Last but not least, if you’re in the UK, and want free access to a wide range of periodicals, don’t forget your local libraries – they’re usually free to join and membership nowadays gives you access to a wide range of e-newspapers and e-magazines through apps such as Borrowbox, Press Reader and Libby. These all have pc and Android versions, the only problem being that you can’t download anything for offline reading from the pc version, and downloads made via the phone/tablet apps are all device-specific and not easily transferable.

I’ve published details of how to get access in a previous blog. 

 

Happy reading….

First Published: 30.8.26; Revised 14.10.26

 

 

 

 

 

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