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by 1vuio0pswjnm7 462 days ago
"https://archive.is is still the de-facto way to read NYT articles..."

It's popular on HN for sure, but archive.is only works where the NYT article is archived

Lighter weight, open source, local solutions like Bypass Paywalls Clean work on any NYT article regardless of whether archived

archive.is may be blocked for some internet subscribers in some countries

archive.is webpages are quite large and contain telemetry

For example,

   </script></div></div><img style="position:absolute" width="1" height="1" src="https://[USER-IP-ADDRESS].us.TBT3.379913754.pixel.archive.is/x.gif"><script type="text/javascript">
2 comments

I've never understood why their free bypass extension doesn't release it's sources on public platform.

Their git pages just refer to bundled extensions.

You can get the sources from the extension, but I doubt that anybody audits them and kind of afraid to install it in my browser with access to all tabs.

Could work for a dedicated browser only for paywalls bypass though.

The fact that Bypass Paywalls Clean works for so many websites is kinda baffling to me. Are there any reasons why they choose to implement paywalls in front-end only, or is it just technical incompetence?
One that comes to mind is SEO - they want their articles to show up in search engines and social media.
The people who bypass the paywall wouldn't pay anyway. It's just a marketing tactic. This + SEO.