Ladder

Ladder is a web proxy to help bypass paywalls.This is a selfhosted version of1ft.ioand12ft.io.It is inspired by13ft.

Why

Freedom of information is an essential pillar of democracy and informed decision-making. While media organizations have legitimate financial interests, it is crucial to strike a balance between profitability and the public's right to access information. The proliferation of paywalls raises concerns about the erosion of this fundamental freedom, and it is imperative for society to find innovative ways to preserve access to vital information without compromising the sustainability of journalism. In a world where knowledge should be shared and not commodified, paywalls should be critically examined to ensure that they do not undermine the principles of an open and informed society.

Disclaimer:This project is intended for educational purposes only. The author does not endorse or encourage any unethical or illegal activity. Use this tool at your own risk.

How it works

sequenceDiagram
client->>+ladder: GET
ladder-->>ladder: apply RequestModifications
ladder->>+website: GET
website->>-ladder: 200 OK
ladder-->>ladder: apply ResultModifications
ladder->>-client: 200 OK

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Features

• Bypass Paywalls
• Remove CORS headers from responses, assets, and images...
• Apply domain based ruleset/code to modify response / requested URL
• Keep site browsable
• API
• Fetch RAW HTML
• Custom User Agent
• Custom X-Forwarded-For IP
• Docker container(amd64, arm64)
• Linux binary
• Mac OS binary
• Windows binary (untested)
• Removes most of the ads (unexpected side effect ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
• Basic Auth
• Disable logs
• No Tracking
• Limit the proxy to a list of domains
• Expose Ruleset to other ladders
• Fetch from Google Cache
• Optional TOR proxy
• A key to share only one URL

Limitations

Some sites do not expose their content to search engines, which means that the proxy cannot access the content. A future version will try to fetch the content from Google Cache.

Certain sites may display missing images or encounter formatting issues. This can be attributed to the site's reliance on JavaScript or CSS for image and resource loading, which presents a limitation when accessed through this proxy. If you prefer a full experience, please consider buying a subscription for the site.

Installation

Warning:If your instance will be publicly accessible, make sure to enable Basic Auth. This will prevent unauthorized users from using your proxy. If you do not enable Basic Auth, anyone can use your proxy to browse nasty/illegal stuff. And you will be responsible for it.

Binary

1. Download binaryhere
2. Unpack and run the binary./ladder -r https://t.ly/14PSf
3. Open Browser (Default:http://localhost:8080)

Docker

docker run -p 8080:8080 -d --env RULESET=https://t.ly/14PSf --name ladder ghcr.io/everywall/ladder:latest

Docker Compose

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/everywall/ladder/main/docker-compose.yaml --output docker-compose.yaml
docker-compose up -d

Helm

SeeREADME.mdin helm-chart sub-directory for more information.

Usage

Browser

1. Open Browser (Default:http://localhost:8080)
2. Enter URL
3. Press Enter

Or direct by appending the URL to the end of the proxy URL: http://localhost:8080/https://www.example.com

Or create a bookmark with the following URL:

javascript:window.location.href="http://localhost:8080/"+location.href

API

curl -X GET"http://localhost:8080/api/https://www.example.com"

RAW

http://localhost:8080/raw/https://www.example.com

Running Ruleset

http://localhost:8080/ruleset

Configuration

Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Value
PORT	Port to listen on	8080
PREFORK	Spawn multiple server instances	false
USER_AGENT	User agent to emulate	Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
X_FORWARDED_FOR	IP forwarder address	66.249.66.1
USERPASS	Enables Basic Auth, formatadmin:123456	``
LOG_URLS	Log fetched URL's	true
DISABLE_FORM	Disables URL Form Frontpage	false
FORM_PATH	Path to custom Form HTML	``
RULESET	Path or URL to a ruleset file, accepts local directories	https://raw.githubusercontent.com/everywall/ladder-rules/main/ruleset.yamlor/path/to/my/rules.yamlor/path/to/my/rules/
EXPOSE_RULESET	Make your Ruleset available to other ladders	true
ALLOWED_DOMAINS	Comma separated list of allowed domains. Empty = no limitations	``
ALLOWED_DOMAINS_RULESET	Allow Domains from Ruleset. false = no limitations	false

ALLOWED_DOMAINSandALLOWED_DOMAINS_RULESETare joined together. If both are empty, no limitations are applied.

Ruleset

It is possible to apply custom rules to modify the response or the requested URL. This can be used to remove unwanted or modify elements from the page. The ruleset is a YAML file, a directory with YAML Files, or an URL to a YAML file that contains a list of rules for each domain. These rules are loaded on startup.

There is a basic ruleset available in a separate repositoryruleset.yaml.Feel free to add your own rules and create a pull request.

-domain:example.com#Includes all subdomains
domains:#Additional domains to apply the rule
-www.example.de
-www.beispiel.de
headers:
x-forwarded-for:none#override X-Forwarded-For header or delete with none
referer:none#override Referer header or delete with none
user-agent:Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/119.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
content-security-policy:script-src 'self';#override response header
cookie:privacy=1
regexRules:
-match:<script\s+([^>]*\s+)?src= "(/)([^" ]*) "
replace:<script $1 script= "/https://www.example.com/$3"
injections:
-position:head#Position where to inject the code
append:|#possible keys: append, prepend, replace
<script>
window.localStorage.clear();
console.log( "test" );
alert( "Hello!" );
</script>
-domain:www.anotherdomain.com#Domain where the rule applies
paths:#Paths where the rule applies
-/article
googleCache:false#Use Google Cache to fetch the content
regexRules:#Regex rules to apply
-match:<script\s+([^>]*\s+)?src= "(/)([^" ]*) "
replace:<script $1 script= "/https://www.example.com/$3"
injections:
-position:.left-content article.post-title#Position where to inject the code into DOM
replace:|
<h1>My Custom Title</h1>
-position:.left-content article#Position where to inject the code into DOM
prepend:|
<h2>Subtitle</h2>
-domain:demo.com
headers:
content-security-policy:script-src 'self';
user-agent:Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/119.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
urlMods:#Modify the URL
query:
-key:amp#(this will append?amp=1 to the URL)
value:1
domain:
-match:www#regex to match part of domain
replace:amp#(this would modify the domain from www.demo.de to amp.demo.de)
path:
-match:^#regex to match part of path
replace:/amp/#(modify the url from https://www.demo.com/article/ to https://www.demo.de/amp/article/)

Development

To run a development server athttp://localhost:8080:

echo"dev">handlers/VERSION
RULESET="./ruleset.yaml"go run cmd/main.go

Optional: Live reloading development server withcosmtrek/air

Install air according to theinstallation instructions.

Run a development server athttp://localhost:8080:

air#or the path to air if you haven't added a path alias to your.bashrc or.zshrc

This project usespnpmto build a stylesheet with theTailwind CSSclasses. For local development, if you modify styles inform.html,runpnpm buildto generate a new stylesheet.