Free Answers from Experts-Exchange.com
You might have stumbled upon Experts Exchange if you ever had a computer related question that you could not answer. First step, type in your question into Google. Second step, find the site listed high for the answer and realize that you have to register to access it. Big thanks to eonestudio for making this little trick public. The above link displays a video which shows how you can take a look at the answers for free.
All you need to do is the following. Search for something, e.g. printing from a website, the search string you would enter would look like the following.
printing from a website site:experts-exchange.com
Please note that it is not necessary to use the site:experts-exchange.com parameter, this is only done for demonstration purposes.
The first search result will link directly to the experts-exchange.com article with no solution but a button stating View Solution. If you click that button you see that you will have to subscribe to view the solution. Not today though.
Go back to the Google results page and click on Cached which loads a cached version of that webpage. Guess what? The cached page holds all the answers to the question right at the bottom. Just scroll down and see for yourself.
Update: The trick is no longer necessary, as Experts Exchange have changed the way results are displayed on the site. You can check out How To View Experts Exchange Answers Without Account for the long answer, or use the following explanation:
Just visit the Experts Exchange website and scroll down until you see the result on the page. The site hides the results by displaying lots of junk at the top. If you scroll down though, you will find the answers on the page. You can also check out the Experts Exchange Junk Cleaner to remove that junk from the page.
Update 2: The site has been redesigned again and the answers to questions are no longer displayed on the page so that you can't just scroll down to read them. The userscript linked above also does not work anymore because of this.
Update 3: A new hack emerged that you can make use of to display the answers right on the Experts Exchange website without registration. Visit this page and paste the url of the Experts Exchange question page into the form on it.
actually, just clicking on the original link and scrolling to the bottom of the screen should give the same results. funny thing is, it has always worked for me, including a test search after reading this. then i tried again and it stopped working…. you jinxed it! ;-P
Since it’s fair to assume that the search engine spider could see the full answer to index it, I’ve always just switched my user agent to a Googlebot before browsing Experts Exchange.
It also works for most other sites that require you to register to view full articles but show the full article to search bots in order to get you to find the page to start with and be sucked into paying/registering for content…
The User Agent Switcher extension for Firefox is great for this.
odd…I used the same search terms (at home now- first post was from work) mentioned in the above article and clicking on the first experts-exchange link and then scrolling down gives the answers as the cached version.
Now, if I DO NOT clear my cache and cookies and try the search again and click on the same search result link, it does not have the answers at the bottom (a quick check at the length of the vertical scroll bar shows there is no more data on the page), but after clearing the cookies/cache (probably clearing just the cookies will do) and repeating the steps and clicking the non-cache link, it shows the answers at the bottom again.
It seems the Google Cache link is controlling this. Any ideas?
It’s definitely a cookies thing. I have opera set to block cookies for that website, and I can ALWAYS scroll down to see the answer. They want to get you hooked with one free answer, then they put a cookie on your computer to take future answers away.
Why are areas along the Pacific Ranges so rainy?
hey guys
“”Go back to the Google results page and click on Cached which loads a cached version of that webpage.””
how can i do this thing
Pls help me
This doesn’t work any more. The cached version is now hidden and you have to pay to see it.
I want to subscribe to expert exchange for free , is it possible.
clear your cache (as previously stated a few times), THEN refresh the EE page. answers show at the bottom
You can view all EE answers by simply viewing the page source in your browser.
Yes, you have to sift through some code but the responses are there. Enjoy!
Nice. Thanks.
Doesnt seem to work again.. maybe because I have https forced? is this working for others?
Those tricks don’t seem to work anymore, unfortunately.