Looking for Outline.com? See 6 better alternatives

The Outline site  ended a few months ago, however, recently returned but with a totally different format. Before the main goal was to circumvent sites that charge for content, the so-called Paywall. You're probably here because of this, looking for a way to access the outline.com or even looking for alternatives to it.  (If you are looking for the best outline alternative, here is the place! )

If that's the case, we've compared this article with six alternatives, so you can access any website without worrying about advertisements or fees payments.

1.  PDF Journal 2.6 (link)

 What is the best outline replacement?  After much research, the best option we found was the site PDF Journal, being the most similar to the purpose, being the best site to read blocked news.

It can turn any site into a PDF version (as the name suggests) or into an HTML version. In both cases, when doing the conversion it breaks the Paywall of the site, thus accessing blocked content and also eliminating advertisements.

Note: for those who still do not know what is the term Paywall, these are sites that only release content to subscribers or those that charge an individual price for each article. Therefore, to know how to release the URL for free access, you need these sites.

2.  Burlesque

Burlesque is a very good alternative to Outline, being cross-platform and developed by Brazilians. It has an extension for Google Chrome (and other browsers with the Chromium engine) and another for Firefox. The advantage of using Bursle.co for Firefox, is that with this it is also possible to use on Android, since Firefox Mobile accepts extensions.

To use Burlesque in Chrome, do the following:

1- First download the burlesque-chrome file.zip
2- Then unzip
3- Now type chrome://extensions/ in chrome address bar
4- Then activate Developer Mode in the upper right corner and click Upload expanded extension... 
6- Select the folder where you unzipped the burlesque-chrome and ready

If you use other browsers using Chromium-based, you can install the extension by going to chrome://extensions and dragging burlesque-chromium.crx into the page.

3.  12FootLadder

If you want to see the site exactly as it is, with the same design and only unlock release the URL to read blocked stories to subscribers this is also a good option.

Unlike Outline, where all the visuals – and even advertisements – of the site are gone, the idea of the 12 Foot Ladder is  the opposite: it can access any blocked site and removes the paywall from them, but maintains their design. It's just not 100% effective because it can't show the images.

4.  txtify.it (link)

Txtify is an option for fans of the Outline.com because it removes all the propagated from the site, just as the old sites did. The difference is that Txtify converts a web page into a simple text by turning it into a .txt.  It is excellent when you are with a slow connection and also to copy the text and send in WhatsApp, for example.

Just like the first option, by doing this conversion it automatically breaks any lock with existing Paywall. Just paste the URL you want to access and that's it.

5.  Bypass extension for Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox

This is an extension that you install in your browser. It automatically detects Paywall sites and gives normal access. Not all sites are supported, but you can add one manually.

The problem I found is that it didn't work at all. In Brazil, for example, even though Estadão was on their list, it didn't work. It supports the following browsers – Chrome, Firefox, Edge.

Access the link of the extension on github and there is a step by step how to install manually, here we also teach.

6.  Reader view do Firefox

If you use Firefox, it natively has a reader version that converts the site into a simpler design, while doing so, breaks the Paywall of the sites.

Pro Tip – You can add about:reader?url= before any URL to enable it on any site in Firefox Browser while using Desktop.

The use is simple, just click on a small sheet icon that will appear next to the URL of the site. On the site https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clutter-free-web-pages they give more details of how to use.

7.  Printfriendly (link)

Another good alternative to Outline that has the same idea behind it is Printfriendly. It basically converts the page to a pdf-friendly version to be printed, also breaking Paywall.

PrintFriendly cleans and formatd web pages for a seamless printing experience. It removes ads, browsing and everything. In addition, it also lets you delete parts of the text that you don't want.

Why don't we agree with Paywall

We know that all news sites need the ads to survive and this is how it also happens with Tekimobile. However, a tactic that emerged a few years ago and became common place on large portals is protected content, the so-called Paywall. This happens when you try to access a portal, such as Estadão, Veja, 4rodas and Folha de SP and come to the screen saying that it is necessary for you to sign to read.

We are not against charging for content, however, the problem is that these portals are indexed equally others.  That means you go to Google and look for something, so Google ranks these sites in the top positions normally, but after clicking you won't be able to access without paying.

That's the part we don't agree on, if it's to pay, then Google should make it very clear or not index the content. These pages compete directly with those who do not do such a practice, like us, and thus we lose access to the user. That's why services like the old Outline end up being a solution for those who don't agree with paywall practice.

We arrived at the end of the article and showed several alternatives to Outline, sites to access news from portals that charge to access the articles, or even sites that exaggerate in advertisements. Which one do you think is better?

FAQ

What happened to the outline.com?

That's a hard question to answer, we don't know exactly what the reasons for disabling Outline were the way it was in the old days, but there are some clues.

First, it was a completely free service and certainly required a lot of work to get it on the air, this in itself would be a reason for developers to end it.

with so many people searching on Google how to access sites that need subscription, Outline has become very well known in the world, being a very easy tool to use. It may have happened that major global portals that practice Paywall have "come together" and threatened developers.

The site as it was before ended, however it came back as something totally new and called outlinetts, as suggested by the "tts" of the name, it is now a service that turns text into voice, focusing on people with visual impairments. To survive, he uses signatures, very fair since he has a very noble goal.

Which site replaced outline?

Here are 6 alternative sites that replace Outline: The top three are:

·       PDF Journal

·       12 Foot Ladder

·       ‎Bypass

Here we also show the other 6 alternatives, remembering that all are free.

How to read blocked stories?

To read blocked stories, or read without Paywall, you will have two options: A site that renders to you the blocked article in another link or the second option is a site that converts the text of the site (made in HTML) to another format such as PDF.

This second option is widely used by various online services. Here in this article, we list 6 diverse options that use either the two options above, or even extensions for Google Chrome that do the job.

Via Tekimobile