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Find out how to access The Japan Times premium articles without subscription.
The Japan Times is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper since March 22, 1897.
It comes in both print and digital format.
The Japan Times covers the latest international news and also from Japan.
Like all the other newspapers, it has business, politics, culture, entertainment, sports, editorial, commentary and cartoons.
Well, if you are keen of reading great online news content, please do subscribe The Japan Times.
Anyway, for those who merely want to browse, then try out any of the tips below.
Welcome to another post from The DiGiztal Paywall Access Tips Series.
This is a revised and updated post.
This original post was published back in June 2021.
Back then, there are only a few ways to get past The Japan Times article limit for both Firefox and Chrome browser.
Currently there two categories of web content.
There is the usual web articles and then there is premium content called LONGFORM.
For the soft paywall, by the third paragraph, the text begins fading off, and followed by the subscription options.
Whereas the those Longform articles, which are for Premium subscribers.
Similarly it shows the first two paragraphs, the words starts diminishing from the third paragraph, and you can see this paywall reminder.
All the tips below work with the usual web articles.
But for the LONGFORM for premium subscribers, you can only use the #4 Hover Paywall extension to access.
Before I share with you the workable ways to access The Japan Times website article for free, here is a quick tip.
Do you know, occasionally you can find paywalled The Japan Times paywalled article freely available in the Google search results page?
For instance, from its site, this news story, "How a Japanese fraud group ran scams from Southeast Asia" is incomplete.
But you can read it in full in Google search page.
What you do is, you copy out the article title and do a quick Google search.
Access The Japan Times articles tips
Table of Contents:
Currently (2025) I find these following methods can still view The Japan Times webpages.
Like most news websites, The Japan Times also uses a soft paywall, or a metered one to be exact.
A metered paywall means it allows you read a few articles for free, but after you reach a certain number, then you have to pay to read more.
The Japan Times paywall uses cookies to count how many free articles you've read.
If you hit your limit, you just delete those cookies from your browser (in the tip #6), and the website would have no record of your past visits.
Hence you can access the site again, because it treats you as a new visitor.
But for a hard paywall, it completely blocks you from seeing any of the article, until you pay for a subscription.
Let's go into each technique how people could get their hands on The Japan Times web articles for free.
1. Archive.Today
This method works for both Firefox and Chrome browsers.
If the article which you want to read which has already archived, you can read right there.
But if it is not archived, then you have to archive it, before you can read it.
One simple way is go to Archive.Today.
Paste the URL of the blocked article in the space provided under "My url is alive and I want to archive its content".
Next click the "save" button.
If that article has already archived, you can read this full article straight away.
Find out more ways how to use Archive.Today to unlock paywalled articles for free.
2. Add a dot after .jp
This method to get behind The Japan Times paywall is the simplest and it works.
This is what you do:
You add a dot after the the top-level domain .jp in the article URL.
Example: The article "Alain Delon: A 'god' in Japan".
As you can see it is blocked.
The URL is:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2024/08/20/entertainment-news/alain-delon-japan-fans/
Add a dot after .jp and now it looks like this:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp./culture/2024/08/20/entertainment-news/alain-delon-japan-fans/
The dot is highlighted in yellow, so you can see it clearer.
Press the "Enter" key, and the full article of "Alain Delon: A 'god' in Japan appears.
3. Hover Paywall extension
Hover is a browser extension with two functions "Bypass Paywalls" and "Block Ads".
Install the the extension to your browser and enable the "Bypass Paywalls" settings.
You can keep reading The Japan Times web articles, without hitting the paywall.
NOTE: You can read the premium LONGFORM articles with this Hover extension.
Refer to this Hover Paywall extension tutorial.
4. Private browsing
Private browsing means using the built-in browser tool called Incognito window (Chrome), and New Private window (Firefox, Safari), or in Private Window (Edge).
The original function is for you to surf the internet without saving your browser's history, cache, and cookies on the device you're using.
Incidentally you can use this tool to circumvent japantimes.co.jp paywall.
When you are at the blocked page, right click the article title, and a box pops up.
For Chrome, click "Open link in incognito window", Firefox is "Open Link in New Private Window" and Edge is called "Open link in in Private window".
It opens a new window and you can view the complete article.
5. Clear cookies and data then reload
This method is for both Google Chrome and Brave browser.
Basically you just clear the browsing history.
When you come to a paywalled webpage,
Chrome: Click History, then click Delete browsing data.
Firefox: Click History, then click Clear Recent History..., a box pops up, click the "Clear" button.
Then just reload the page and this time the subscription box should disappear, except the full article.
6. JavaScript bookmarklet
For Chrome browser, this is what you do:
Open its bookmark page, by pressing Ctrl + Shift + O keys.
Click the three dots on top of the right hand corner.
A menu pops up, click “Add new bookmark”.
The "Add bookmark" box appears.
The Name space, you can call it Read The Japan Times Free; it is to identify its function.
The URL box, paste this set of code inside it.
Click the "Save" button.
Now you have saved the JavaScript in your browser.
The next time when come across the The Japan Times articles behind the soft paywall, click this bookmarklet.
It should open the article in full view, without the subscription reminder.
If the first click, doe not work, click again the second or third time.
If you are not sure, refer to this post, "How to use JavaScript bookmarklet to access paywalled articles".
For Firefox users, you can also access The Japan times webpages free with Temporary Containers extension.
These are ways how to read The Japan Times articles for free online.
Watch the How To Bypass The Japan Times Paywall video below:
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