medium-paywall-bypass

# Medium Paywall Bypass ## Overview Fetch paywalled Medium articles using free mirror services. Try services in order until one works. ## Service Priority | Service | URL Pattern | WebFetch | curl | Notes | |---------|-------------|----------|------|-------| | **Freedium** | `https://freedium.cfd/{encoded_url}` | Yes | Yes | Best option, returns content directly | | **Archive.today** | `https://archive.today/latest/{raw_url}` | No | Maybe | Often requires captcha | | **RemovePaywalls** | `https://removepaywalls.com/{raw_url}` | No | No | Redirect page only, needs browser | | **ReadMedium** | `https://readmedium.com/en/{encoded_url}` | No | No | Returns 403 programmatically | - `{encoded_url}` = URL-encoded (slashes become %2F, @ becomes %40, etc.) - `{raw_url}` = Original URL as-is **For Claude Code: Use Freedium via WebFetch.** Other services require browser interaction. ## Workflow ``` 1. User provides Medium URL 2. Try Freedium first via WebFetch 3. If blocked/empty, try next service 4. Extract and present article content ``` ## Example Usage Given: `https://medium.com/@user/some-article-abc123` **WebFetch (recommended):** ``` URL: https://freedium.cfd/https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2F%40user%2Fsome-article-abc123 Prompt: Extract the full article content ``` **curl fallback:** ```bash curl -sL "https://freedium.cfd/https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2F%40user%2Fsome-article-abc123" ``` ## Medium-Hosted Domains These domains use Medium's paywall system: - `medium.com`, `*.medium.com` - `towardsdatascience.com` - `betterprogramming.pub` - `levelup.gitconnected.com` - `javascript.plainenglish.io` - `uxdesign.cc` - `hackernoon.com` - `codeburst.io` - `itnext.io` - `proandroiddev.com` - `infosecwriteups.com` ## Common Issues | Problem | Solution | |---------|----------| | Freedium down | Try alternative mirror: `freedium-mirror.cfd` | | Article not found | Article may be too new to be cached | | Garbled HTML | Use WebFetch with prompt: "Extract the article text and format as markdown" | | 403/blocked | Try curl with `dangerouslyDisableSandbox: true` | ## Quick Reference ```python # URL encoding in Python from urllib.parse import quote encoded = quote(url, safe='') # For WebFetch tool freedium_url = f"https://freedium.cfd/{quote(medium_url, safe='')}" ```