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How to Access Wikipedia During Its SOPA Blackout

by James Plafke | 10:25 am, January 18th, 2012

If you’re a person who feels the need to use something right when it turns out you can’t, or you’re the type of person that must know everything about everything when it comes up in conversation, then the Wikipedia SOPA protest blackout is probably an obnoxious inconvenience, though it is happening in the name of all that is good. Fortunately for Wikipedia enthusiasts who can’t live without learning all they can about Bruce Willis and his studio albums, Wikipedia is still accessible during its blackout protest.

There are a few ways to access Wikipedia today:

  1. The easiest way would be to use the mobile version either on your phone or in your computer’s browser. Simply visit the mobile site and off you go.
  2. Similarly easy, you can use the simple English version of the site, which can be accessed here. Because this is the simple English version, however, the site doesn’t cover topics as thoroughly as the mobile and blacked out main site.
  3. Another way is to disable JavaScript in your browser. In Chrome, go to Settings, Under the Hood, then Content Settings, which is where you can turn off JavaScript. To be a bit cleaner, you can turn off JavaScipt only for Wikipedia by clicking on Manage Exceptions then entering en.wikipedia.org as the hostname. In Firefox, head over to Tools, Options, then Content. It’s a safer bet to shut off JavaScript solely for Wikipedia, and not your entire browser, as doing so would break a bunch of other sites that aren’t blacked out.
  4. Hilariously, you could also take a screen capture of your Wikipedia article, as they load for a second before turning into the Wikipedia blackout message. This, of course, is a ridiculous way to read your Wikipedia articles.

Alternatively, you could simply not use Wikipedia for a day and remember what the world was like before you could have one place for all the information on a topic you could ever want that is technically editable by anyone and can be easily turned into a lie.

I’ll be using the mobile site.

(via Mashable)

Relevant to your interests

  • Jackbondnj16

    I just stopped the page from loading before the blackout screen popped up.

  • Anti-SOPA

    Or you can just press ESC just before you get re-directed to the black screen.

  • Jack

    or just add “?banner=none” to the url..

  • Steve

    Nice.

  • eqagunn

    Nice indeed. By now, I was just stopping the page from loading, but this is by far the best method. Thanks Jack.

  • Patrick

    i just went to the spanish site and translated it to english in chrome

  • http://profiles.google.com/johnpatricksmith Patrick Smith

    Another option: look at the cached version on Google.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Laura-Eagle/26300799 Laura Eagle

    Guys, it’s one thing that you’re not participating in the blackout strike, but actively undermining it? That’s not very nice. I’m disappointed.

  • Jason

    It’s interesting that they made it so easy to get around the blackout overlay. I originally opened firebug and just modified the css.

  • Leave Sopa and Pipa

    that works! but did you know you can write what evr you want after the = sign?

    ex. 
    ?banner=hi?banner=.EXCEPT you cant just leave it like this:
    ?banner=  u have to type sumthing in the space


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