ian-bateman

That's all true - we mention these directly on our FAQ ([redacted]) -- many are issues we plan to address as soon as possible -- the application 100% works in terms of functionality, but is definitely still under heavy development!

> i wonder how you see this playing out in the future

In the near future, we're planning to expand into more general adblocking; we're currently focused on growth & there's still a lot of internal discussion happening, but we're most seriously considering a Spotify-style or micropayments model... very early days though - we just officially launched last week!

Looks like some others beat me to it, and I just commented elsewhere on this thread - but I'd recommend checking out [redacted] - works on nytimes!

Shameless plug (Founder here), but I’d highly recommend checking out [redacted] as an alternative!

We work on a number of major publications that 12ft does not, including NYT, WSJ, and several others. We have a full list of supported publications here: [link redacted]

Thanks jimpix45! Glad to hear you're enjoying Incoggo :)

It's a 'local proxy' - meaning it runs entirely on your device, and filters network traffic. Beyond this, there are a wide variety of client-side filtering techniques that we use; we mix and match these based on the specific implementation of each publication (they're all pretty different in practice).

Ah that may be a miscommunication on our part! In the context of the app, paywall block == paywall bypass.

So as a few people have asked, this actually lets us use a variety of client-side unblocking techniques (like inbound request modification) that browser extensions can't (due to extension API limitations), and effectively unblock publications that the browser extensions don't (can't) — think major ones like WaPo and Bloomberg. The app also works across all browsers, not just Chrome / Firefox. As an aside, due to limitations caused by how cellular networks handle IPs, it's next to impossible for these sites to implement IP-based metering without severe adverse side effects, but the proxy does give very fine-grained control over how the user is presented to the end-site (including apparent IP address).

Right now, we don't make money or monetize at all, and are still exploring options. For the foreseeable future, we're 100% focused on growth and plan to raise VC funding to sustain operations. Ultimately, we want to find a monetization solution that works well for everyone and keeps our interests aligned with the best interest of our users.

Yes, it definitely 100% helps in that regard!

That's understandable - if you'd like a work around for now, the app has a 'pause' feature (which, if active, will cease to proxy traffic completely - you can just turn it on briefly as needed, then 'pause' it after loading the article).

The reason for the root cert is that in short order (after cleaning up our infra, etc.) we're actually planning to expand to a full-spectrum adblocker.

Yeah that's totally fair & we try to be pretty upfront about the issues (FAQ + forum). There's definitely a lot of bubblegum and duct-tape on this at the moment - been putting a lot of work in to fix the bigger issues ASAP (been modeling a lot off the AdGuard approach / targeting parity).

Really making the longer-term bet here that with a lot of work, the underlying proxy infrastructure will enable a lot of really interesting possibilities, and the shorter-term bet that with this approach we can create the best / most effective adblocker for paywalls by far.

TL;DR - we can unblock a lot of things with this approach that browser extensions can't; it also works across all browsers (esp. relevant for Safari users).

Digging in, there are a few reasons actually - first is, Chrome removes extensions with this kind of functionality from the Web Store constantly (only option would be to sideload).

Under the hood, Incoggo is also actually a local proxy (it adds a trusted root cert during the install process - we have some details on this / other potential issues / concerns on our forum). Reason for this being, Chrome extensions can't modify inbound requests in the way that's required to unblock several of the publications we support (NYT, Bloomberg, WaPo being key examples).