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As newspapers and magazines make the slow transition from print to online content, they make some mistakes along the way like requiring registration to view content. From their point of view it seems like a good idea, they can track their users just like their used to doing with dead tree format subscribers.
But for those of us that think a webpage is, well, something entirely different that quite obviously shouldn't require giving up e-mails and creating usernames and passwords, it's a serious barrier.
You could do what we did, just ignore registration sites (sorry LA Times but we stopped reading you years ago). Or you could be a bit more subversive and use a service like [http://www.bugmenot.com/tutorial.php BugMeNot].
== Fake your way in ==
BugMeNot isn't some complex or overly clever hack, it's just a site where people share login and password info for various sites. For instance, some aspects of the New York Times continue to require registration.
So rather than waste time signing up, just head over to BugMeNot and search for other users login credentials for the time. For most big sites like the Times, there are several options to choose from and we've generally had great success. BugMeNot has regular updates too, so if something doesn't work try back later and see if there's another option available.
== Smoothing the Process ==
Good news for Firefox fans: There's a BugMeNot plugin that can save you a trip to the site. [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6349 BugMeNot 2.0] works with nearly all version of Firefox.
Once its installed just write click the registration form and you'll see a new menu item Login with BugMeNot. Just select that and the plugin will automatically generate a username and password by querying BugMeNot
== Pay sites ==
Of course registration isn't the only barrier, some sites still charge for access or hide some pages behind "premium" paywalls.
Ostensibly BugMeNot doesn't let users share pay site login information, there's even a section where site administrators (or concerned users) can tell BugMeNot to block certain submissions. Naturally, clever users have found ways around this and there are a few pay site logins to be found from time to time on BugMeNot.
But for more reliable sources you're going to have to dig deeper and head into the internet's darker corners. Anything we link to from here is likely to be shutdown pretty quickly so we're not going to give you specific sites (and please refrain from posting direct links if you're editing the page), but we do have some suggestions.
The first place to look would be on [http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Share_Files_on_Usenet Usenet], the ancient, but still useful precursor to the internet which remains to this day, much more wild west like than the web. If you want to confine yourself to the web, start looking in forums. A [http://groups.google.com/ Google Groups] (or similar) search will yield more than a traditional web search. Also try the forums on various torrent rackers like [http://suprbay.org/ The Pirate Bay], where less scrupulous users tend to congregate.
== Conclusion ==
Getting around registration forms isn't too difficult thanks to BugMeNot and since most of those looking to get around this stuff wouldn't be giving out real info anyway there's little harm done. Circumventing pay sites is obviously less morally justifiable, but if it bothers you there's an easy solution -- don't do it.
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