Install Userscript | View Code
The Age has changed their paywall implementation and removing the ffx:paywallCount object from localStorage no longer works.
The updated version of the bypass now works by requesting the article via a background XHR, injecting the article body back into the page and removing the paywall prompt.
The Age allows users to view three free articles per month. This is enforced entirely client-side by storing an object in the user's browser via the localStorage API (similar to a cookie). The object is named ffx:paywallCount and it keeps track of free article views and the date that the three article limit will reset.
{"expires":"2022-11-26T04:37:56.558Z","value":0}
If the value property is >= 3 a client-side script will remove the article contents from the page and inject the paywall prompt. We can easily bypass this by deleting the 'ffx:paywallCount' object from localStorage with localStorage.removeItem('ffx:paywallCount') on each page load.
There is a minor complication with this method, however. The Age seems to be dynamic web app that uses the History API for page navigation instead of traditional page redirection. This means that our userscript only fires when the website is initially loaded or refreshed, and not each time the user clicks on an article. This means that viewing three or more articles without refreshing or closing the page will still trigger the paywall. We get around this limitation by creating a new MutationObserver that monitors for changes to the DOM's location.href string. Every time the URL in the address bar changes while browsing The Age, the userscript's payload will fire.