Making the modern Web readable

Here’s a topic on how to avoid annoying paywalls, unreadable layouts, and the like… I have a few preferred tactics.

  • 12ft.io describes itself as a 12 foot ladder for a 10 foot paywall
  • on an iphone there’s often a Reader View Available button in the top toolbar
  • Firefox also offers a reader view
  • textise.net will transform a site into a plain-text version
  • archive.is (or archive.today) will show an archived page that’s usually less user-hostile than the original, as will web.archive.org
  • Google often offers a ‘cached view’ of a site and even a plaintext version of that cache.
  • Reaching a site by clicking on a Google result will sometimes be less hostile than navigating to it some other way. Similarly, sometimes going via a link on Twitter will be more fruitful than going direct.
  • using an incognito browser window, or clearing cookies, will sometimes help, as will disabling JavaScript.
  • Instapaper transforms most websites to plain text, but you need to sign in with your free account - I use this one all the time.

See also perhaps
Ad-blocking techniques

Prompted by a comment in Frome (and its sheds) in the New York Times.

Thanks Ed
(12 char min)