digg

Join DiggAbout

Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.

See the original image at makeuseof.com

3 Ways to access ‘Must Sign Up to View’ Sites

makeuseof.com — This happens many times to me: I search on Google for a problem I ’m having with my computer, click on a search result, reach the site (most of the time, it’s a forum), and boom! I have to register in order to view the solution on the page. Or worse, on some occasions, they want me to pay them to view the page.

Bury
show profanity settings
expand all
  • foolawrence, on 03/13/2008, -50/+5yay 3 more site everybody already know about
    • BurnTees, on 03/13/2008, -5/+7if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
      • lolwutpear, on 03/13/2008, -3/+9that defeats the purpose of the comment system. he can say something not nice if he wants, but if he says something dumb, we bury him.
        • itsgotyou, on 03/13/2008, -0/+4agreed. but your nick is infantile and i have a strong feeling that i will hate you if i ever were unlucky enough to meet you.
          • ennTOXX, on 03/14/2008, -1/+2I think it's great to let everyone know about this. I agree that having to sign up to view information is soooooo 1996... :||
    • scribat, on 03/13/2008, -2/+5Actually, I never knew about bug me not or be the bot, dick.
      • foolawrence, on 03/13/2008, -4/+2Then you must be the web version of Helen Keller without the will to overcome. They've been the subject of dozens if not hundreds of articles in digg, and probably other sites as well. Bugmenot has a FireFox extension.
  • esengulov, on 03/13/2008, -6/+32@ foolawrence

    I have a feeling that you haven't even read the article. Even though everyone knows about Google Cache, how many people actually use it to access Experts Exchange?
    • faizal5k, on 03/13/2008, -0/+9Agreed. I never knew about this. This is just freakin awesome.
    • superheroboy, on 03/13/2008, -0/+31I have a feeling you've never seen the reply link.
      • laddr, on 03/13/2008, -1/+10Must not have wanted to get his comment lost under the bury avalanche of foolawrence.

        Awesome comment system...
    • Thinkman, on 03/13/2008, -0/+18You don't need google cache to read EE answers. Just scroll all the way to the bottom there are non-obfuscated answers. Don't believe me? Try it!
      • Firehed, on 03/13/2008, -0/+3I was so happy when I first found that out. What a lame attempt at security by obscurity (without ***** up your SEO).

        As it turns out, I haven't missed much by not having a membership.
        • Farhan, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1Damn i did'nt had any idea about this, Thanks :D
      • rd3k, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1Wow thanks so much for that! The number of times EE has come up after I googled a problem, and I though "damn, you need membership".
      • roosterjm2k2, on 03/13/2008, -2/+3I cant believe people don't know this...
      • barf314, on 03/13/2008, -1/+0Doesn't work. I tried scrolling down, but I still didn't get any answers...just a bunch of douches orally fapping...
        • jasonvw, on 03/14/2008, -0/+1keep scrolling. It looks like you've reached the end of the page, but you haven't.
          • barf314, on 03/14/2008, -0/+0/sarcasm

            There, does it make sense now? yeesh...
    • MrWraith, on 03/13/2008, -1/+1haha. ive been using google cache to view EE for years

      but i didnt know about "Be The Bot"
    • ileftfark, on 03/13/2008, -1/+1Experts Exchange! I always thought it was the top way to change your gender! :0
    • spykez, on 03/14/2008, -0/+0I have, it's usually the first thing I try for websites like Experts Exchange, but I agree it's something that's good to know.
  • Emused, on 03/13/2008, -8/+3"Be the Bot", wants to go to Playboy.com.
  • Tynian, on 03/13/2008, -3/+49@esengulov
    What I don't understand about Experts Exchange is that they'll fool you into subscribing, but all the answers are READABLE at the bottom of each page (after their scrambled counterparts and a lot of adverts). So even Google Cache is not needed at all.
    • OkydOky, on 03/13/2008, -2/+9Why is he being Dugg down?
      It's true.. Just learn to scroll Down EE!
    • perot9296, on 03/14/2008, -0/+2I submitted a complaint to Google several months back that they werent putting full content on their pages, perhaps they do it now just for the googlebot. If you see a site doing shady *****, submit a complaint to Google.
    • newslang, on 03/14/2008, -0/+3Huh...didn't notice that, thanks Tynian.
      When I accidentally click an experts exchange link from a google search I usually just swear a lot and click 'back'.
      • bliz, on 03/14/2008, -0/+1It irritated me to the point of adding EE to the blocksite extension for firefox.
  • m1keh, on 03/13/2008, -4/+3I don't know if it's still the case, but EE uses CSS to scramble their answers. Just disable CSS or read the HTML source, and you'd get it also.
    • tomgibbons, on 03/13/2008, -0/+9As far as I know you can no longer do this. However, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page you will find the full, unscrambled posts. I'd imagine this is because EE still want to provide the posts to search engines for indexing and are prohibited from serving different content to search engines than everyone else.
    • uglysmurf, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1 dmd
  • bobbysarcletti, on 03/13/2008, -0/+6do these actually work on many sites?
  • hawk0168, on 03/13/2008, -0/+7you mean people DON'T know about bug me not?
  • Arisian, on 03/13/2008, -3/+451. bugmenot.com USUALLY doesnt work.
    2. It's incredibly easy to deny bot access to a site using a robots.txt file
    • Scynet, on 03/13/2008, -0/+3On sites with lots of users, you'll almost certainly find an account with a username AND password of "asd" or "qwerty". Just find the login page and insert those, or some other generic examples.
      • Mr8lack, on 03/14/2008, -0/+3Thanks for the tip. With experts exchange username: qwerty and 123456 works...
    • turbovince, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1Article doesn't say it's unbeatable, it's just there to help.
    • NanoStuff, on 03/14/2008, -0/+1You have to specifically ALLOW certain bots to access protected content. Your robots.txt file will do nothing against bots that really want to see your content, they simply won't represent themselves as bots.

      There is nothing that needs to be added to the robots.txt file to give bots the same access privileges as human user agents. If access without login is denied by default, it's denied for bots too.
    • NanoStuff, on 03/14/2008, -0/+1To make it clear, the reason the 'bot' trick sometimes works is when the application specifically allows certain bots to bypass login so that they may index the information on the site. The site can also pass an attribute to the google bot to prevent caching.
    • sysop073, on 03/16/2008, -0/+1I have a lot of success with bugmenot, especially using the firefox plugin that will just keep throwing all the usernames and passwords at the login prompt if one doesn't work. And robots.txt has absolutely nothing to do with this at all
  • antivirus6613, on 03/13/2008, -3/+24Pron access anyone?
  • fuhcough, on 03/13/2008, -3/+2While the article wasn't of much value to me, the comments were.

    @m1keh - thanks. Had no clue EE used CSS to scramble. :)
    • roosterjm2k2, on 03/13/2008, -1/+1Or just scroll to the bottom, where the answers are readable...
  • mciampa1214, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1Useful, but tell me how to access sites blocked by my overly strict university...
  • novemberdream07, on 03/13/2008, -1/+15my guess is that porn sites are hip to this stuff and there goes anytime i would actually use these :(
  • Wiini, on 03/13/2008, -4/+2Bug me not is wonderful. I've used it for the last two years.

    Anyone who says bug me not doesn't work, is probably trying to access sites they should'nt be.
  • thrallie, on 03/13/2008, -2/+1For EE, all you need to do is look for the free sign up. I signed up for free and I haven't had a problem accessing any of the answers. It's easier in the long run than trying to get past their scrambling and any more security they add.
    • heavyd14, on 03/13/2008, -0/+2All you need to do is scroll down.
      • barf314, on 03/13/2008, -0/+2but that's so hard! I'd rather get spammed.
    • Olfster, on 03/13/2008, -0/+0It still amazes me as to why people pay for things that are essentialy free. And yes if you gave them your email address you paid. Is it convenience. I would not even scroll down to see the answers. Every time I encountered these sites through a google search I found the needed answers at a differnt (free) site altogether.
  • MonarchWastxD, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1Googlebot's user agent was cool.
  • masfenix, on 03/13/2008, -1/+1Awesome ideas, but for example, if you get to a secured page using google cache, you can't click any links that will make you go to other secured links. and unless you know the backbone of the site, that'll be one tough cookie to figureout.
  • scoobycarolan, on 03/13/2008, -1/+1SICK~!
  • faraggi, on 03/13/2008, -2/+3please tell me this works for porn sites as well!
  • EvanVolm, on 03/13/2008, -6/+14. You could, you know, just take 10 seconds out of your life and sign up.
  • forumreader, on 03/13/2008, -1/+1I like how the author writes a post detailing ways to get around giving a site support through the trade of their information for yours, but then begs you to sign up for his RSS feed at the end.
    • Tuemmel, on 03/13/2008, -2/+0The author becomes the beggar and the beggar who grabs free stuff only is the one who 'pays' with his 'expensive' time, he spends on the page. And at least you have the cheek to complain. That sounds too weird to me. I'll be better paid with a donation instead and like to kick these grabbers to hell.
  • r00tus3r, on 03/13/2008, -0/+3www.experts-exchange.com is the worst when it comes to this.
  • VSLOATHE, on 03/13/2008, -0/+2As an aside (and it might be mentioned already but I've gotta get out the door), it's easy to change your browser's useragent string to emulate a Google bot, without having to use someone else's web application to do it. In firefox go to about:config and change it there. In IE, I believe it's a registry setting.
  • lescar, on 03/13/2008, -0/+5There's a nice add-on for firefox which lets you change your user agent: https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/59
    Just install it, then go to tools -> user agent -> switcher -> options -> options ->user agents ->add
    Description: Googlebot
    User Agent: “Googlebot/2.1+(+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)” Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
    You'll be browsing as the google bot.
  • A11YND, on 03/14/2008, -0/+1Does not work for porn.
  • jimjoke, on 03/14/2008, -1/+1I hate Experts Exchange for switching to a subscriber system.
  • iMelrose, on 03/17/2008, -0/+0I like porn.
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.