Tell HN: Add ?share=1 to Quora URLs to display content without login

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6300856

by pearjuice • 13 years ago

341 128 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Piskvorrr4• 13 years ago

So, essentially, Quora is now expertsexchange, with page cloaking and whatnot? Good to know. (I hope they won't remove this method now that it's publicized...)

jaredsohn2• 13 years ago

It has been for over a year now.

http://www.quora.com/Quora/Why-hasnt-Google-banned-Quora-for...

Edit: Link fixed :)

justincormack2• 13 years ago

Of course I tried clicking on Android and it refuses to show stuff without me installing the app. Ban them Google!

RyanMcGreal• 13 years ago

Ahem.

http://www.quora.com/Quora/Why-hasnt-Google-banned-Quora-for...

gregclermont• 13 years ago

They actually officially communicated about this method:

  Open any Quora URL. If you come across a Quora link
  anywhere and you want to read it without being asked to
  join Quora, you can add the text "?share=1" to the end
  of the URL.

http://blog.quora.com/Making-Sharing-Better

eeeeeeeeeeeee• 13 years ago

expert sex change

colemanfoley2• 13 years ago

It's really not. Once you sign up, there are no pop-ups, nor are there advertisements of any kind.

Piskvorrr4• 13 years ago

Nope. Even if this promise were to hold true, I have no intention of supporting such scammy tactics as content cloaking (which I would by implicitly supporting the company which engages in them, thus validating it).

silencio• 13 years ago

The problem everyone had with expertsexchange was most definitely not ads and popups.

ohwp2• 13 years ago

Same with vBulletin™ boards.

Change

  showthread.php?1234-title

  printhread.php?t=1234

and suddenly you can read all the content (except for attachments) without login.

thejosh2• 13 years ago

It's really scummy that I land on these pages to be presented with a login box and need to do this trick to see the contents.

JonnieCache• 13 years ago

Nice! Thanks for the tipoff.

Another good one is simply to load the google cache. Often these sites want to turn up in search results, so they allow the googlebot to see the content, and then show the user a paywall. Obviously this means the full content ends up in the cache. This works for the Financial Times, and probably many other such places.

AznHisoka• 13 years ago

I wonder why Google doesn't do anything about it. It seems these big companies/brands get to get away with anything.

fourstar• 13 years ago

Tried it on:

http://forums.offtopic.com/printhread.php?t=5190971

And got redirected to the homepage instead.

ohwp2• 13 years ago

Looks like they totally closed the forum. There aren't any posts indexed by Google.

ssafejava• 13 years ago

Interestingly, they used to just blur their text with effect, and the actual text was available in the source. I am not certain what prompted the change, but they now screenshot the text, blur it, and put the screenshot (!) in the page, preventing view source snooping.

Since that started, I stopped reading Quora entirely and I always avoid their links. Occasionally there is some great content I can't find elsewhere, and I won't sign up to a service that is so abusive. This is a great trick. Thanks.

benjaminwootton• 13 years ago

Yes, Quora are really quite obnoxious and spammy in many ways.

It's a shame they went down this route after a promising start. They could have taken the StackOverflow route but chose to be Expert-Sex-Change instead.

pestaa3• 13 years ago

In case some people are not aware, Benjamin refers to the closed and paid Experts Exchange community, whose domain name is particularly easy to misread.

justincormack2• 13 years ago

I also did that plus deleted my account and all my answers, many of which were quite popular. It started so well too.

nodata• 13 years ago

Isn't that forbidden by Google?

dangrossman• 13 years ago

Only if they're serving up a different page to Google so that it can index that text. If Googlebot gets the same HTML someone clicking on the search result would get, your site can be as user-unfriendly as you want.

patrickaljord4• 13 years ago

I've just tested and I don't see any image, the html is right there and just clicking will make the lightbox go away. I never see it anyway cause I'm signed in but I tried in incognito mode and it was fine. Not sure why there's so much misinformation and hate on HN when it comes to quora.

ZoF• 13 years ago

The reason you don't see an image is because you're signed in or you happen to be viewing an unblurred answer...

As someone who has never used this site I can assure you that answers are a blurred PNG with the title "Sign up to view the contents of this answer."[1]

It's not misinformation if it's correct.

[1]http://www.quora.com/iPhone/How-do-I-move-contacts-between-g...

andypants3• 13 years ago

It is not misinformation. Here is a screenshot of a quora page with source: http://i.imgur.com/x8Ic69y.jpg

raverbashing• 13 years ago

It's probably possible to recover the text from the blurred image (depending on the amount of blurring), some people would consider it a challenge

duncans• 13 years ago

... they now screenshot the text, blur it ...

I think the blurred text is generic.

bsullivan01• 13 years ago

Great hack but unless absolutely necessary I'll just keep searching to find the answer on other sites. Let them keep their info

benologist2• 13 years ago

Trafficking their site is supporting their site and practices.

zizee• 13 years ago

Or better yet, install personal blocklist and never see Quora results in your search results again:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist...

thejosh2• 13 years ago

Google having this as a feature for a while was great, annoying that they removed that....

Kerrick• 13 years ago

Well, the aforementioned extension is by Google, they just took the functionality out of Google Search and put it into an extension because it was easier to maintain for the number of users that used it.

deletes• 13 years ago

I couldn't before but now i can see all the answers without ?share=1. Did they change their policy? I can't find any blurred answer anymore.

voidiac2• 13 years ago

If you have been on any answer with ?share=1 they're setting a cookie and you get no blurred answers until you remove the cookie or it expires.

tech-no-logical• 13 years ago

funny, I'm browsing with latest opera with some plugins (notably addblock plus and disconnect) and I can read everything without logging in and without adding the ?share=1

still not using that site though.

edit : my mistake. it seems that once you've used a ?share=1 link, that changes some cookies so after that you seem to always see everything

hearty778• 13 years ago

Most likely, they have to meet VC benchmarks on the number of registered users. Sad what that site has become.

joeblau• 13 years ago

I see that a lot of people aren't happy with Quora, why is that? I've only asked one or two questions on there but the answers I've received have been alright.

voidiac2• 13 years ago

They are blurring the answers. If you search for something and end up on quora, it can get a bit frustrating , due to the fact, that you can't read the answers and are forced to sign up. That's just rude.

gergles2• 13 years ago

They abuse rel=canonical to increase their search engine rank but slam a registration wall in your face when you try to go read the content on their site.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6301280

waxjar2• 13 years ago

- They blur their answers for non-registered users. They're wasting my time when I think I find what I'm looking for only to find a blurred image. Just tell Google you don't want to be indexed if you don't want to share the content.

- You can't use their website without using your real name. They're really persistent in this. A pseudonym won't do, they'll ask you to identify yourself with a scan of your ID before they let you participate. It's ridiculous.

vdaniuk• 13 years ago

That's not true. You can register an account with a fake name and you won't be required to provide any ID.

bdg• 13 years ago

Websites are growing in their nuisance of DOM-level UI breaking. I'm increasingly using the Inspector dev tool just to delete entire chunks of elements on websites.

"Oh, you need me to click LIKE on your page? ... Deleted!"

"Oh, your news article is 25% of the width of the page and the other 75% is navigation, ads, and other unrelated articles? Deleted!"

"Oh, you have the annoying chat box that hovers in the bottom corner and hides things I actually wanted to see? Baleted!"

I keep telling myself that eventually I'll add a deletion option to the right-click context menu but I never actually bother with it.

mavhc2• 13 years ago

There should be an adblocker list for popups, survey requests, etc

Sprint2• 13 years ago

Just disable Javascript by default, it will protect your sanity.

robert-wallis• 13 years ago

Wouldn't it be ironic if the list were hosted by a company who's revenue largely comes from ads. Like most internet companies today.

Maybe some kind of balance would be better than a block list. Effective ads that don't annoy.

eterm• 13 years ago

There must be a market for a chrome plugin that lets one ctrl+click to delete a DOM element, I wonder how hard that would be?

antimatter15• 13 years ago

I built this extension a while ago for precisely that reason. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hide-elements/omjo...

eli• 13 years ago

Might as well just use a Readability-type plugin to pull out the text.

DjangoReinhardt• 13 years ago

I thought Nuke Anything Enhanced was meant to do exactly that?

Links:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nuke-anything...

zsouthboy• 13 years ago

I wrote a bookmarklet to delete stuff like this without opening the inspector:

  javascript:(function(){document.styleSheets[0].addRule(".highlighted_to_remove","background:red !important");var e=function(e){if(e.keyCode==27){i()}};document.addEventListener("keydown",e);var t=function(e){e.stopPropagation();this.classList.add("highlighted_to_remove");return false};var n=function(e){e.stopPropagation();this.classList.remove("highlighted_to_remove");return false};var r=function(e){this.parentNode.removeChild(this);i();e.preventDefault();e.stopPropagation();return false};var i=function(){var i=0;var s=document;while(s=document.body.getElementsByTagName("*").item(i++)){s.removeEventListener("mouseover",t);s.removeEventListener("mouseout",n);s.removeEventListener("click",r);s.classList.remove("highlighted_to_remove")}document.removeEventListener("keydown",e)};var s=0;var o=document;while(o=document.body.getElementsByTagName("*").item(s++)){o.addEventListener("mouseover",t);o.addEventListener("mouseout",n);o.addEventListener("click",r)}})()

Post about it: https://plus.google.com/114437281866675781856/posts/hkp9F9Wr...

Lambdanaut• 13 years ago

Nice. I think your bookmarklet stretched the hacker news comments page.

Deleted!

durzagott• 13 years ago

Thank you for this! It looks pretty awesome.

Sammi• 13 years ago

Works like a charm in Chrome. Not so in Firefox. I'm on a Mac.

panzi2• 13 years ago

So did I!

    javascript:var cursor = document.body.style.cursor; document.body.style.cursor = "crosshair"; var killer = function (event) { document.body.style.cursor = cursor; if (event.target.parentNode) event.target.parentNode.removeChild(event.target); window.removeEventListener('click', killer, false); event.stopPropagation(); event.preventDefault(); }; window.addEventListener('click', killer, false);void(0)

Keyframe• 13 years ago

Readability is your friend! http://www.readability.com/apps

rspeer• 13 years ago

I've never been able to get Readability-the-app to work on most sites. It seems far less useful than the original bookmarklet. I also don't want to send things to my "Reading List" or my imaginary Kindle.

pessimizer• 13 years ago

Remove It Permanently

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-it-per...

Based on Aardvark; fixes the web.

nollidge2• 13 years ago

AdBlock's pretty good at handling this stuff too.

anoncow• 13 years ago

Eventually, this will become a crime and we, programmers, will support it. Because, legislating our way to money is easier. Locking down is easier.

arikrak3• 13 years ago

Extensions like Readability and Clearly let you read just the main content on the page. It would be nice if they had an option to automatically load pages like in that mode. Besides avoiding all the clutter websites put, the pages would also load faster that way.

ismyrnow• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure readability routes web pages through their service to strip them down to the main content, and restyle them. Since this processing isn't done on your machine, it would probably be slower than loading the original page. Also, a company would never invite the amount of traffic such a feature would incur.

arikrak3• 13 years ago

Update: There is an extension like this, called permanent readability: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/permanent-readabil...

(though I think it strips out the junk after the whole page loads.)

tripzilch• 13 years ago

You might enjoy this "position:fixed fixer" bookmarklet I wrote, it just sets all elements with position:fixed to position:static. In 99% of the cases this does exactly what is needed to improve the page, without even having to manually click or select the elements.

    javascript:for(var a=document.querySelectorAll('*'),i=0,e; e=a[i]; i++) if (e.currentStyle.position == 'fixed') e.style.position = 'static'; void(0)

I have it named "fix", so I can just type "fix" in the address bar and it applies to the current page. It's lovely, all those floating fixed elements just disappear (possibly somewhere to the bottom of the page) and you get your screen estate back.

edit: I just see a bunch of others also made bookmarklets to remove elements, so I added a bit more description as to why mine is different. Setting all position:fixed elements to position:static really does seem to do exactly what you want in one fell swoop, in 99% of the cases.

59nadir• 13 years ago

I think websites in general are getting away with bloat overall. Ever since I started using noscript I've gotten increasingly annoyed by how every site seems to wanna run scripts from at least 3-4 sources that I know aren't essential to my experience on the actual site. Some sites have upwards of 15 sources and I have to wade through them to allow the content servers, etc..

logicallee• 13 years ago

Jesus H. the lengths people go through not to register a throwaway astounds me.

"How to get into a library without having to fill out a registration form" where the library doesn't care what you write in it, including Dicky McDick.

Honestly. Just register under some kind of pseudo. The sense of entitlement here... why do you think people write great answers there?

You're taking for granted the resource - which wouldn't exist if Quora didn't create and encourage a platform - and want to not give back to an uttely inane extent: even the idea of registering a pseudonym is abhorrent to you.

darxius• 13 years ago

You're honestly asking why someone would rather take the quick and much more anonymous way out instead of registering? It makes perfect sense to me.

anirudhrata• 13 years ago

Exactly. Quora doesn't even need a valid email for registering.

gergles2• 13 years ago

why do you think people write great answers there?

Well, I certainly don't think it has anything to do with the fact that they require registration. People write great content on 4chan.

Jesus H. the lengths people go through not to register a throwaway astounds me.

Have you ever actually been to Quora? The registration modal doesn't even give you the offer to register with a pseudonym that you so casually throw out. You get smacked in the face when you go to the site with a demand to link to your (real-name required) Google or Facebook accounts before you can so much as read 'their' precious content. To sign up with just an email address (that you then have to verify, which automatically opts you in to literally over 30 different 'newsletters' and notifications and other bits of spam that you have to manually opt out of individually). It certainly isn't just "type something into this form to shut up" as you suggest.

MichaelGG• 13 years ago

Dunno, I used some Mailinator-type email, signed up with some Quora-mocking name, and it seems to work. I still think it's annoying, and I'm not sure how Quora's a "business", but whatever.

Sagat• 13 years ago

How did you figure this out?

seanp2k2• 13 years ago

This is awesome; thanks for sharing.

I still feel that Quora should promptly go die in a fire, Google should de-rank them, Stack Overflow should supersede them, and users should abandon them for the good of the internet, but what do I know.

seiji2• 13 years ago

SO doesn't allow talky SV navel gazing opinion threads though.

enscr• 13 years ago

Why the hatred? Quora isn't that bad. They fixed what google/yahoo answers couldn't

krelian• 13 years ago

The tactics they are using basically mean they are dead. It's expertssexchange all over again.

astrodust• 13 years ago

"Isn't that bad" and "Yahoo Answers" in the same sentence probably explains why.

It's like saying dollar-store dog food isn't that bad...compared to malaria.

eevee• 13 years ago

And yet I still read Yahoo Answers, and I never read Quora.

wpietri2• 13 years ago

Having written enough on both to know them reasonably well (4 gold medals on SO, Top Writer on Quora), I like Quora much better as a platform. The community design is much better on Quora, I think the UI is more appealing, and I don't have to worry about insane moderators nuking valuable content because it doesn't fit their personal agendas for the site.

My only real objection to Quora is that they make it so hard to share content. I think the walled garden thing is just wrong; I (and many other Top Writers) haven't been shy about telling them that, either. I hope they will eventually come around.

hk__2• 13 years ago

Same here (Top Writer too).

yalogin• 13 years ago

Rather than that I have trained myself to never click on Quora links. I never understood why they became popular in the first place but then they went and thought forcing people to register to view pages is somehow needed for success on a Q&A site.

seiji2• 13 years ago

They became popular because of Founder Fame by Association.

They started requiring registration because they belong to The Cult Of Registered User Metrics and they forgot the internet is 98% read and 2% contribute.

a3n• 13 years ago

Yeah, I never click anymore. I have a login, I could probably ask them for it, but I'd have to log in every time because I never stay logged in to anything but HN, so meh.

jentulman• 13 years ago

This is handy and all but have the last 12 months not taught us all that this sort of unauthorised access to systems can land you a period of state funded accommodation?

wpietri2• 13 years ago

It is authorized. They have published this and encourage people to use it. The main goal was, from what I could tell, to get popular writers to stop bitching about their interface all the time.

reginaldjcooper• 13 years ago

or better yet just don't share links from Quora, let them die their shameless death, and instead post answers to things that want to be and remain open like Stack Overflow or your own blog.

mofle• 13 years ago

I wrote a Chrome [1] extension and UserScript [2] which does this automagically:

[1] https://github.com/sindresorhus/quora-unblocker [2]: https://github.com/sindresorhus/quora-unblocker-userscript

mkolodny• 13 years ago

This fact was reported on the official Quora blog back in February (http://blog.quora.com/Making-Sharing-Better).

If you come across a Quora link anywhere and you want to read it without being asked to join Quora, you can add the text "?share=1" to the end of the URL.

slig2• 13 years ago

They're too big to fail, they have some very nice friends at Google or they're some kind of big shot AdWords client.

Google should come out and do their thing banning them.

nollidge2• 13 years ago

Alternatively, I could just not read Quora.

colemanfoley2• 13 years ago

The hostility to Quora seems a little excessive. Is it so bad to just sign up, then be able to use it from then on? I don't see why someone would actually be offended by this kind of thing.

Piskvorrr4• 13 years ago

You are attacking a straw man argument. The problem lies not with registration, but with purposeful degradation of content a la expertsexchange, for the purpose of _forcing_ registration just for viewing. I'm _not_ interested in registering into every walled garden out there on the Internet, just for the purpose of reading a result of a web search.

(All right all right, you can do the "but it's technically not content cloaking" quora astroturf dance now; but you know the saying: if it walks like duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck...)

cpeterso• 13 years ago

I'd like a Firefox add-on that can rewrite URLs that "fix" sites. This Quora fix is one. Another is "&pagewanted=1" on nytimes.com to force single-page article view.

Tell HN: Add ?share=1 to Quora URLs to display content without login

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