Stop Hitting Medium's Paywall: Open Articles in Freedium with One Click

Dhaval Joshi — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 06:24:12 +0000

As developers, we read a lot.

Whether it's tutorials, architecture discussions, AI research, or engineering blogs, Medium is home to a huge amount of valuable content. Unfortunately, many articles eventually run into the member-only prompt, interrupting the reading experience.

I wanted a simpler workflow.

Instead of manually copying a Medium URL, opening Freedium, and pasting the link every time, I built a Chrome extension that automates the process.

Introducing Freedium – Read Medium Articles Free

This extension detects the current Medium article and lets you open it in Freedium with a single click.

No copying URLs.

No switching tabs.

Just click and continue reading.

Why I Built It

My normal workflow looked like this:

Open a Medium article.
Hit the member-only prompt.
Open Freedium.
Paste the article URL.
Wait for the page to load.

It only takes a minute, but repeating it multiple times a day gets annoying.

This extension removes those repetitive steps.

Features

🚀 One-click access to Freedium
⚡ Lightweight Chrome extension
🧩 No account required
🔗 Automatically detects the current Medium article
🎯 Simple and minimal interface
💻 Open source

How It Works

The extension simply:

Detects when you're viewing a Medium article.
Retrieves the current page URL.
Opens the corresponding Freedium page in a new tab.

That's it.

No tracking.

No complex background services.

Just a small utility that saves a few clicks every day.

Installation

Install it directly from the Chrome Web Store:

Chrome Extension
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/freedium-read-medium-arti/fmjhglncijcinacolmmaepghmgcloljf

Source Code

The project is completely open source.

GitHub Repository:

https://github.com/therohanparmar/medium-to-freedium

Feel free to:

⭐ Star the repository
🐛 Report issues
💡 Suggest improvements
🔀 Submit pull requests

Tech Stack

The extension is built using:

JavaScript
HTML
CSS
Chrome Extensions API (Manifest V3)

Keeping the codebase simple makes it easy for anyone to contribute or customize.

Future Ideas

Some enhancements I'm considering include:

Support for Firefox and Edge
Keyboard shortcuts
Context menu integration
Automatic redirection (optional)
Better UI and user preferences

If you have other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Disclaimer

This extension does not modify Medium or bypass authentication. It simply streamlines the process of opening the current Medium article in Freedium. Whether an article is accessible depends on Freedium's service and Medium's policies.

Final Thoughts

Sometimes the best developer tools aren't large frameworks or AI assistants—they're tiny utilities that remove repetitive friction from your daily workflow.

If you're someone who frequently reads Medium articles, I hope this extension saves you a few clicks and makes your reading experience a little smoother.

If you find it useful, consider giving the project a ⭐ on GitHub or contributing to the repository.

Happy reading! 📚

Introducing CursorNinja – One Script to Install, Update & Setup the Cursor Editor!

Dhaval Joshi — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 07:44:07 +0000

I just open-sourced CursorNinja 🚀
A clean and reliable Bash-based utility to simplify your Cursor Editor setup & updates.

🔧 What it does:

Installs the latest or specified version of Cursor

Auto-checks existing installation and upgrades smoothly

Works across macOS and Linux

One-liner install method ready!

🛠️ Perfect for developers who want to:

Reinstall after system format

Share setup scripts in teams

Use Cursor AI locally with consistent environments

Try it now 👉 https://github.com/vcian/CursorNinja

Contributions, stars ⭐ and feedback are welcome!

DEV Community: Dhaval Joshi