Money-saving ways to avoid online news subscription paywalls

The Daily owner Rupert Murdoch waving a clenched fist.

Rupert Murdoch shakes his fist at news ninjas who avoid his paywall. (Photo Credit: CC BY-ND/Jason Wilson/New Matilda)

If you’re an online news addict with limited funds, the move toward news paywalls could be horrible news. Without information, you could end up choking in the digital dust. Thankfully, there are some tricks you can use to circumvent digital news paywalls and continue to enjoy your daily information fix.

Google News: A news aggregator escape from the paywall

Google News links to news websites across the Web. It’s a great place to get your daily news fix. As it is arranged in a clear, easy-to-digest format with top news, local news and news categories, it’s easy to take care of your digital news jones.

Newspapers app: An iOS portal to publications across the US

For $1.99 in the Apple Apps store, Newspapers is an app that provides users with a directory of links to literally every online newspaper website in the country. Read articles on your iPod, iPhone or iPad in Safari. If you prefer to download a story for later, send it to an app like Instapaper.

Reeder: A smarter RSS reader

RSS feeds are a great way to keep up with the news that’s important to you, and Reeder does it the clean and easy way. It has a newspaper-style interface, and the iOS app cuts the ads and reformats the page for optimal reading pleasure. Get it for your Apple device for only $2.99.

The Zite-geist of iPad news

The free iPad app Zite acts as a kind of “personalized magazine,” says Business Insider. It recommends news you may like, via connections to your Twitter and Google Reader accounts. However, simply picking articles to read from within the app can also drive your customization experience.

Free Associated Press and CNN apps

Mobile apps by the Associated Press and CNN are great iOS and Android options for world, national and local news. Users of the AP app can even choose their favorite local and national broadcasters and follow their stories in print and video. CNN’s app presents streaming video in a polished fashion, and allows users to submit their own photos of news events via the iReport feature.

Jobbing the system: How to obtain free access to NYT and The Daily

Twitter users have been able to create a list of each NYT Twitter feed. Clicking the links via Twitter or blog postings don’t count toward the 20 articles per month limit the Times has imposed, so this amounts to free access. A similar process work with The Daily, which is indexed by the blog The Daily: Indexed.

Peter Kafka of MediaMemo reports that the NYT will limit free referrals via Google to five per day, although using other search engines like Bing may not have the same restrictions – for now.

Why did the Times put up a speed bump for Google? Because users could simply Google an article headline and get into the article without going through the front door, so to speak.