I've encountered a paywall and I'm trying to bypass it using javascript in the console. I did some research and found a few different approaches, one of which is changing the requestheader in order to make a given website believe that you got there through a twitter link (thus allowing you to view the content for free). The function I use aims to change the referer by listening to the onBeforeSendHeaders event as specified on https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/webRequest/onBeforeSendHeaders. It looks like the following (NOTE: This function is typed and executed directly inside of the devtools console):
function setReferer(x){
x.requestHeaders = x.requestHeaders.filter(function(header){
if(header.name === 'Referer'){
return false
return true
)}
x.requestheaders.push(
{
"name: "Referer",
"value": "https://t.co/" //Twitter website
}
return {requestHeaders: x.requestHeaders};
}
//this example uses chrome browser
chrome.webRequest.onBeforeSendHeaders.addListener(setReferer,
{
urls: ["<all_urls>"],
types: ["main_frame"], },
["requestHeaders", "blocking", "extraHeaders"] //extraHeaders meant to bypass CORS protocol
);
Unfortunately upon refreshing the window, this approach gives me folllowing error:
GET <some_url> net:ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT
Behind this error is the URL to the source code of the article, which I was able to load and copy into word, so I got the article I was looking for anyway. However I wasn't able to view it inside of the browsers main frame. Note that I am doing this only for the purpose of polishing my coding skills. I am trying to get a better understanding of the more complicated facets of the HTTP protocol, especially the way headers get sent clientside and interpreted serverside. If anyone knows more about the subject or knows / has a resource that he or she wants to share, this would me greatly appreciated!