How to View Blurred Text on Websites

This article explains how to view the blurred text on paywalled articles to peek at what you'll get if you sign up or subscribe to that website. Unblocking a paywall to view blurred text doesn't work on all websites, and although there are several tips you could try, you'll have the best success with the first few described below.

Use a Proxy

This method will trick the website into thinking it's your first visit. This works only for sites that blur the text after you've reached their limit of free articles.

There are many ways to do this—including just erasing your browser cookies and trying again—and there are even entire services built around it. The last step provides a few alternatives, but we'll show how this works using the Internet Archive.

1. Visit Internet Archive, and enter the web page's URL into the text box.

   This is a website archiving service, so what you're doing is looking for historical snapshots of the page. Not all web pages exist here, so it doesn't work for everything.

2. Pick a year, month, day, and time. If you're not sure what to choose, start with the more recent snapshots.

3. The page, as it was archived at the time you chose, will open.

   If Internet Archive doesn't delete the blurred text, try another archival site like Archive.today. Also try opening the paywalled web page with your browser's incognito mode, Google Translate, 12ft Ladder, or OutLine.

Enter Reader Mode

Edge and other browsers have a special reading mode you can open that will automatically hide ads and other irrelevant objects, leaving just the article's images and text. This will sometimes let you view the blurred text.

Turn on Chrome's built-in reader mode to use that browser. Here's how to turn it on with Microsoft Edge.

1. With the article open, select the Enter Immersive Reader button to the right of the URL. Or, press F9.

2. Immediately, the page should transform and hide the paywall.

3. Other browsers will have their reader modes in different places.

   • In Safari, go to View > Show Reader or click the Show Reader View icon on the left side of the address bar.
   • In Firefox, select View > Enter Reader View or click the Toggle Reader View icon on the right side of the address bar.
   • In Opera, click the Enter Reader Mode icon on the right side of the address bar. It looks like a book.

Hide or Delete the Paywall

If the text is blurry because a pop-up is "physically" hiding it, you can just delete it! This method works only if the paywall is essentially a sticky window hiding the content.

Here's how to do this in Chrome; it works similarly in other browsers:

1. Right-click the pop-up or blurry text, and choose Inspect to open Chrome's developer tools.

2. Look around in the code that's now visible at the bottom of the screen for a reference to something about the paywall or blocked text. It might say overlay or something similar.

3. Right-click the code, and select Delete element. Don't worry, any edits you make are local, and apply only to your computer; you can't cause any damage or change the real website.

   If you deleted the wrong thing, or it didn't unblur the text, Ctrl+Z will undo it, but we recommend attempting to delete other items in that same area until you find the right code snippet that belongs to the paywall.

4. If you still can't see the text, or you can see only part of it but can't scroll, add this to the body element:

    overflow: visible
   

   If you already see that attribute, but it says hidden, just edit the text to say visible.

On some websites, it can be a bit confusing deleting the right areas to remove the blurred text or paywall pop-up. If you're in developer tools, but can't seem to find what needs to be removed, see if you can open the article's paragraphs from there.

Just expand the lines that start with p, like this:

Other Ideas for Viewing Blurred Text

One website might implement its paywall differently than another, so you might need to try something else if the above directions aren't helpful.

For example, disable JavaScript to see if the paywall will fail to load, put a period right after the TLD (e.g., example.com./), or use a dedicated paywall skipper like Unpaywall.

Lastly, you can make the website think you're coming from Facebook, which could work if the website lets social media visitors access their content for free. To do that, copy the text below, and paste it just before the article's URL.

 http://facebook.com/l.php?u=

We've also seen this work through Google. If you're browsing the website's articles from the website, copy the title of the article you're interested in reading, and paste that into Google. Click it from there, instead, to see if that lets you in.

Why Some Articles Have Blurry Text

There's one reason for this: to reserve select content for subscribers.

That might come in the form of paid subscribers, where the blurry text is accessible only after you pay. This is often the case with big companies that can afford to restrict access to their content. You might be able to see a few pages normally before a paywall (the blurred text) goes up.

If the restricted content isn't for paying subscribers, then the website just wants to collect users. They will force you to sign up for a free account before you can access the content. This is usually done so they can email you about their website's happenings.

Should You Unblur Website Content?

While it's true that a website might have multiple revenue streams, like advertising and sponsored content, bypassing a paywall no doubt directly affects the site's revenue.

The methods described above are intended only for taking a quick look at the content on the page, not for permanently bypassing paywalls and avoiding subscription-style content. Follow those steps if the website doesn't offer a free trial, but you want to take a quick peek to check if you like what you see before you start paying for it.