Spaywall News & Research - spay your paywall

Legally read news and research papers for free, on any device.

Spaywall: Free News & Research Without Paywalls

Spaywall News & Research - spay your paywall is a browser extension that provides a legal route to access news and research papers without facing paywalls. It works by redirecting users to archived, paywall-free versions of the content they're interested in. Ideal for students and academics, it's free with optional upgrades for enhanced features including additional archives and unrestricted access hours.
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Add-on stats

Users: 5,081
-27
Rating: 4.20
(12)
Version: 1.0.1 (Last updated: 2024-01-22)
Creation date: 2022-04-19
Risk impact: Very low risk impact
Risk likelihood:
Very low risk likelihood
Manifest version: 3
Permissions:
  • activeTab
Size: 62.88K

Ranking

# 2,259 ▲ 8
Other rankings
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Other platforms

Spaywall News & Research - spay your paywall (v1.0.1)
3.43 (96) 40,000
Not available on Android
Spaywall - spay your paywall (v1.0.1)
3.43 (23) 3,768
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Add-on summary

Analyze keywords

Spaywall News & Research is the original browser extension that helps you LEGALLY avoid paywalls by searching online archives and redirecting you to a paywall-free version. By pointing your browser to a different website, we are not bypassing or interfering with the paywall on the original article source in any way.

Researchers can also use Spaywall to download free versions of Open Access research papers and articles. Click to search our database of millions of legal, free, full-text scholarly articles and we'll redirect you to the PDF instantly. These Open Access articles are research papers that have been posted with the full permission of the authors and publishers involved. Save time avoiding paywalls and logins, great for students and academics!

Please Note: ✓ Spaywall can be used for 100% FREE, though the Free plan has limitations. ✓ Upgrading gives News junkies additional archive sources for even better news coverage. ✓ Upgrading also gives 24/7 All-Hours Access instead of limited to off-peak hours. ✓ Our algorithm strives to find an archived article that is paywall-free. It's pretty good, but it can never work on all articles. ✓ Because we are searching online archives for a paywall-free copy, an archived copy must already exist. That means articles may need to be a few days old for them to have been crawled by the archivers (though we have seen same-day news work many times!) ✓ If you frequent a particular news outlet, please consider directly supporting the journalism you love.

User reviews

These summaries are automatically generated weekly using AI based on recent user reviews. Edge Add-on Store does not verify user reviews, so some user reviews may be inaccurate, spammy, or outdated.
Pros
  • Allows reading articles across multiple sites without multiple subscriptions
  • Works effectively on many articles
  • Removes clutter of ads and pop-ups, presenting text in entirety
  • Cost-effective compared to individual subscriptions
  • User-friendly and simple to use
Cons
  • Does not work on all articles
  • Sometimes just redirects to the original site asking for payment
  • Limited effectiveness on certain mainstream media sites
  • Some users find it only redirects to the Internet Archive
  • May require additional setups, like using a VPN
Most mentioned
  • Works on many articles
  • Redirects to paywalls asking for payment
  • Not effective on some major sites
  • Clutter-free reading experience
  • Cost-saving alternative to multiple subscriptions
User reviews
Excellent product...well worth the investment for premium! People who are saying that they might as well pay the source site don't seem to understand that they would have to pay countless source sites vs just this one. Yes, we should support journalism, but it's not feasible to have paid accounts with every single site. This allows you to read articles across the internet, and if you find certain sites that you visit often, you can support those with a subscription too if you want.
by David, 2024-08-20
I upgraded to the paid plan, and it is awesome. Does it work on every article? No. But it does work most of the time.
by Joel, 2024-03-29
Tried to view an article and the extension just wrapped the same walled site in a spaywall banner asking for money. If i was going to pay, i would pay the actual site.
by Jonathan, 2024-01-17
View all user reviews

Add-on safety

Risk impact

Spaywall News & Research - spay your paywall does not require any sensitive permissions.

Risk likelihood

Spaywall News & Research - spay your paywall has earned a good reputation and can be trusted.

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