Comments on: Read The Wall Street Journal For Free

By: Jack Tucker

Jack Tucker — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:33:19 +0000

I used to use this all the time, but I haven’t recently. I just tried again now, though, and it’s not working. Has the WSJ closed the Google referrer loophole? I’ve just performed a quick scan of blogs but don’t see anyone else talking about this yet. Anyone else? Anyone else have another approach to this? WSJ doesn’t allow Twitter or other social entries past its paywall the way the NYT does, correct?

By: Mr. Smarty Pants :D

Mr. Smarty Pants :D — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 06:55:30 +0000

Hey so I have been playing around and found a method that still works…

1. Find a WSJ page with a little lock key [requiring a subscription to read the whole art article].

2. Click on that link!

3. Look at the URL. You should see something like this tact on to the end -> ?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews

4. Delete everything after the ? so the the url would go from this http://www.online.wsj.com/article/blahblahblah.html?mod=whatever

to this

http://www.online.wsj.com/article/blahblahblah.html?

5. Make sure you have this add on
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4513

6. Once you have deleted everything after the ? in the URL and you have this plug in installed, simply type “news.google.com” without the quotes and hit spoof.

The full article should be displayed!!! Current to April 2010

By: Rodgers Kidiya

Rodgers Kidiya — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:44:46 +0000

i wanna be a member

By: Nancy

Nancy — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:02:23 +0000

thank you SO much for writing about this! I was able to fully view a wsj article on Wednesday for my class, but when I went to it on Thursday it said that a paid subscription was necessary. I’ve been trying to find this article in different formats, but haven’t been able to until I read this, you saved my paper and taught me something new =) Thanks again!

By: Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:50:46 +0000

JB, I know what they're trying to do by giving out tastes. They've said this in some detail, actually. I covered this here, Dear WSJ: To Avoid Google Disease, Please Put A Condom On Your Content, and you can dive right into the specifics of what they do directly from the WSJ here.

By: JB

JB — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:25:41 +0000

They are using a mixed strategy and trying to attract new subscribers by giving away a taste. If you truly don’t like it, then unsubscribe.

By: Kevin Spence

Kevin Spence — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:58:18 +0000

Also, there’s a Firefox Addon that lets you spoof the referrer. Set it to news.google.com and you can view whatever content you want on WSJ. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4513

By: Kevin Spence

Kevin Spence — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:16:22 +0000

I’ve been doing this for some time — I think I may have learned the trick on Reddit, where people sometimes use it as a means of sharing paid WSJ stories.

WSJ is trying to have it both ways. They want to keep their search referrals while charging a subscription fee. They need to make up their minds and stop being so damn schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is what got them and the rest of the old hat media industry into this mess.

By: Gab Goldenberg

Gab Goldenberg — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 05:23:14 +0000

Hey Danny,

I wrote a little piece about this too (linked via my name) when First Click Free was announced (using slightly less polite language) and how First Click Free meant really that it’s all clicks free so long as you can type site: into google. And for the news, just add the ‘past 24 hours’ modifier or of course go to GOogle news.

You might find it an interesting read, though you likely know most of it.

Cheers
Gab

By: tonypan

tonypan — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 01:28:03 +0000

Now you can read WSJ for FREE!! Try it out: http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~panjiabe/?page_id=21
It works by ref spoofing.