It can be really stressful when you need a subscription to read certain articles. Especially when you only need access for a short period. You probably don’t want to have the financial commitment to pay a subscription for a site like ‘The Washington Post’ and ‘The New York Times’, however meager. The new Chrome update will now enable users to access contents behind paywalls in incognito mode. These are mostly used by websites when you have hit their article limit without having subscribed.

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People using incognito mode can surf the internet privately and anonymously. It prevents browsing history and other user data from being saved on the device. Another advantage of the incognito mode is that it blocks websites from tracking its visitors.

What most subscription based news media sites do is to track the amount of articles a reader has clicked on. Incognito mode has been the way a lot of users have been able to bypass these metered paywalls. They are able to read unlimited number of articles without being forced to subscribe.

The Update Will Only Affect Metered Paywalls

The publishers, upon discovering this were able to find a loophole in the incognito browser FileSystem API. They were able to now block the bypass and stop letting users read unlimited articles via incognito mode.

However, in the most recent update, Google is planning to block the loophole the publishing companies were exploiting. This will mean they will no longer be able to block visitors from accessing paywall content in the incognito mode.

Before now, publishers would check the status of the FileSystem API and disable the user’s API. They will block the visitor from accessing any of the website’s content once they are able to determine their FileSystem API.

In a blog post, Google said, “People choose to browse the web privately for many reasons. Some wish to protect their privacy on shared or borrowed devices, or to exclude certain activities from their browsing histories.”

“In situations such as political oppression or domestic abuse, people may have important safety reasons for concealing their web activity and their use of private browsing features,” it added. Google says the changes will only affect online publishers who use metered paywalls.

Although the Chrome update affects publishers who use metered paywalls, it will not affect those with hard paywalls like the Wall Street Journal. They will still require paid subscription before accessing any of their content.

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