You can now read the WSJ for free — but only if you burst your filter bubble

A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal’s “google loophole” disappeared. But despair not: there’s a new way to get free access to the WSJ website — and all you have to do is climb out of your filter bubble to get it.

TLDR: Get this iOS app or this Chrome extension (both free) and get reading.

Read Across The Aisle: A Tool To Combat Filter Bubbles

We launched the Read Across The Aisle project as a way to help people assess and escape their filter bubbles. Our tools, which have been called “a fitbit for your filter bubble,” are free to use — thanks in large part to the generosity of our Kickstarter backers. We’ve built an iOS app and a Chrome extension, which have graced the pages of the New York Times, Fast Company, and the BBC.

And as of this week, both of these tools now provide a free, renewable, 7-day WSJ Guest Pass. So you can read all the Wall Street Journal articles you want — and you can escape your filter bubble to boot.

How It Works

In our iOS app, tap on the WSJ link and you’ll be taken to a signup page. Just enter your email address and you’ll forwarded to the WSJ main website. There’s no need to check your email for a special code or validator — it’s really simple. After 7 days, you’ll see this signup page again. Just re-enter your email address to renew your Guest Pass, and keep reading!

News sources are categorized from blue to red (center) and the color bar at the bottom tracks the skew of your media diet

Our Chrome extension displays a dashboard when you open a new tab. Below the list of your most-read news websites, you’ll see a link to the WSJ. Follow this link to register as above (and note that adblockers may interfere with the registration page, so you might have to temporarily disable them).

See which news sites you read most. Choose from different historical periods to see how your habits change over time

Why “Read Across The Aisle”: a Brief History

Read Across The Aisle is built by BeeLine Reader, a software company whose technology makes reading on-screen more efficient by using line-wrapping color gradients. The idea for Read Across The Aisle came (from our founder’s wife, a professor of American History) from the fact that the most popular color scheme for using BeeLine is red and blue. Given the acrimonious political climate, we decided to build an app that brings red and blue together — literally and figuratively.

BeeLine Reader is a startup based in Woodside, CA. Our external funding has come primarily from grants and awards, which we received from The Tech Museum of Innovation, NewSchools Venture Fund, and Stanford University.