About Liberated Reader
What Liberated Reader is and how it works
What is Liberated Reader?
Liberated Reader is a personal reading tool that retrieves full article text from news websites and displays it in a clean, distraction-free format. It is designed for readers who want access to journalism without subscription paywalls, excessive ads, or cookie walls getting in the way.
How it works
When you paste an article URL, Liberated Reader fetches the page server-side using a variety of strategies to access the full content:
- Crawler user agents — requests are made using search engine crawler identities (Googlebot, Bingbot, Facebookbot) which many publishers grant full access
- Proxy service — a residential proxy service is used for sites with stronger protection
- Archive fallbacks — archive.ph and the Wayback Machine are tried when direct access fails
The article text is extracted using Mozilla's Readability library — the same technology behind Firefox Reader View — stripping away ads, navigation, and other clutter to present just the article in a comfortable reading font.
Who is it for?
Liberated Reader is built for curious, informed readers — people who follow the news closely and do not want a paywall to stand between them and a single article they want to read. It works best with Australian publications like the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, and The Age, as well as major international titles. It is not a replacement for a subscription; it is a tool for occasional access when you simply want to read one article.
What makes it different?
Unlike browser extensions that require elevated permissions or services that store your reading history on their servers, Liberated Reader keeps things simple. Your reading history is stored only in your own browser. The server fetches the article, extracts the text, and returns it — no account required, no data retained. The result is a clean reading experience with no ads, no cookie banners, and no distractions: just the article, set in a comfortable reading font.
Principles
Access to information: Journalism is a public good. This tool is built on the belief that access to news and information should not be determined solely by ability to pay.
No tracking, no ads: The reading experience is completely clean. No advertisements, no tracking pixels, no cookie banners.
For educational purposes: This is a personal tool intended for private use. Article content belongs to the original publishers — please support quality journalism where you can.