March 12, 2026
archive.md is the easiest paywall bypass nobody talks about
Most paywall bypass tools are sketchy browser extensions or dodgy sites. archive.md is neither, it's a legitimate web archiving service that just happens to snapshot articles before the paywall kicks in.
Most paywall bypass tools feel gross to use. Browser extensions with suspicious permissions, sites that make you solve three CAPTCHAs, Reddit threads with dead links. archive.md is none of that.
It's a web archiving service - the same kind of thing as the Wayback Machine - that takes snapshots of web pages. The key thing is it captures the full rendered page, including article text that loads before a publication's paywall JavaScript runs. Not a hack, not a loophole in any meaningful sense. Just archiving.
How to use it
The fastest method: when you hit a paywalled article, take the URL and prepend archive.md/ to it. So:
becomes:
Often someone has already archived it and you'll land straight on the snapshot.
If there's no existing snapshot, you can submit the URL yourself. Go to archive.md, paste the article URL into the box, and hit save. It fetches the page fresh and stores it. Takes 10-30 seconds.
Which publications it works on
Works well on: NYT, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, WSJ (hit or miss), The Economist, Financial Times, most Substack paywalls.
Doesn't work on: sites that require login before any content loads, or publications that have caught on and started blocking archivers. The Washington Post has gotten better at blocking it. Wired is inconsistent.
The search trick
If you don't have the exact article URL - say you just want to read something from a paywalled site - you can search existing archives. Go to archive.md/?url=nytimes.com and you'll see recently archived NYT pages. Useful for browsing, not just for specific articles.
One more method: just Google the headline
Seriously. A lot of paywalled articles have been archived by someone else already. Search the exact headline in quotes and add site:archive.md - you'll often find it instantly without having to submit anything yourself.
"The Headline You Want To Read" site:archive.md
Not a silver bullet, but I reach for it constantly. Way less friction than any alternative I've tried.