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. 

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 those that are 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. 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.

As we’ve seen from the perennial battle between book publishers and the shadow libraries, the internet has ensured that 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.

Here’s a paywall bypass method that 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 Read it online or 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 end August 2026, and applies only to the online version of Freedium. 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 fires the next ‘salvo’ in this publication 'battle' is anyone’s guess, so I’d ‘make 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 in doubt, use the website link.

Freedium claim that the software works for other publishing outlets, including NY Times, WaPo, 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 the phone/tablet apps are all device-specific.

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

Happy reading….

First Published: 30.8.26

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What’s Happened to my Bus/Train/Flight ? The Canny Traveller's Guide to Finding Your Way Around on Public Transport in UK

Editor's Note: As a frequent local bus user, I was inspired recently to write a brief guide  for my website's travel page  on how to get the best out of our bus and train networks . Herewith a copy for the blog...it now includes some additional info on local UK air travel....  ------------------------- Our UK public transport network has come a long way on since the days before the internet became widely available in the late 1990s..... Working out how to get from A to B without major trauma during those somewhat simpler times relied on having a good sense of direction, a detailed knowledge of bus/train timetables, some decent maps, a knowledge of how to read them....and being reasonably mobile.  Timetable information was usually only available from tourist information offices, bus and train stations, etc., and only in paper form. It was quite often already out of date by the time you got hold of it. There were no digital bus signage boards for guidance, and few...
Read more

Monkeypox – It's back again - How dangerous is it, and what should we do about it ?

This blog was originally compiled at the time of the Monkeypox epidemic in 2022. A new and more infectious variant of MPox which also has a higher fatality rate, has hit Africa in 2024, and looks as though it has now arrived in UK. Young children are particularly hard-hit by this variant of the virus. Read on to find out more about how the last full-scale epidemic developed, and see also the update compiled this month at the end of the article....hopefully this will provide some insight into what we should expect in UK. T here has been much speculation in the media recently about the current Monkeypox outbreak – not surprisingly perhaps, in view of our recent experience with Covid… Some pundits are even predicting that this could be the fore-runner of the next pandemic   - how realistic a view is this, and should we be worried ? Looking at the evidence objectively, at present the answer to both questions is: No, so far….but we should not be complacent. First, let’s look at th...
Read more

Solar Panels: Are They Right For Me ?

I first published the text of this post on my website. As  a consumer interested in installing solar panels in UK,  I wanted to see what detailed advice was available on how to go about it, but didn't really find anything suitable. I decided to share my experience, as far as it went, in the hope that it would make life a bit easier for anyone else in the same boat.   There is plenty of advice out there on the web, but it seems to be mostly from installers, who will naturally want to extol the benefits of their product, and won't necessarily want to highlight the pitfalls. I've tried to do just that by taking the reader through what is likely to happen if you embark on a quest for solar panels yourself.  I hope it's useful in helping you answer the question in the title...... --------------------------------   Solar Panels: Are They Right For Me ? Despite the relatively slow uptake of domestic micro-generation technology over the past decade, m any of us are...
Read more