Unlimited Pinterest browsing without registration
Ken Saunders from Access Firefox just mailed me a tip on how to browse Pinterest without registration.
If you have been to the site you know that it throws a registration form at you after you browse one or two images pinned on the site.
There is no native option to skip registration and continue browsing which in my opinion is not very user friendly, especially if you want to get a better feel for the site or just browse the two or three images that you are interested in.
Anyway, Ken's method was to use the Firefox add-on Remove it Permanently to remove the offending parts on Pinterest.
While that worked somewhat for me as well, I wanted to find an easier automated solution instead.
Enter Pinterest without registration, a userscript that you install in your browser of choice to skip all nagging popups and overlays on Pinterest that ask for your registration.
Note: The script worked fine in the Firefox browser. I tried it in Google Chrome as well but it would not work in the browser, not even with the installation of the Tampermonkey extension which adds more functionality to scripts in the browser. It should work fine in all Firefox-based browsers and forks including Pale Moon and SeaMonkey.
Firefox users need to install Greasemonkey or Scriptish from the official add-on store to get started. Both extensions work fine and add scripting support to Firefox so that userscripts like Pinterest without registration can be installed in the browser.
Once one of the extensions is installed, head over to the Greasy Fork website and click on the install this script button on the Pinterest without registration page there.
This displays an installation dialog highlighting on which sites the script runs. In this case, it will run on all Pinterest sites including all local subdomains that use http or https.
Click install and you are done. The script works automated from this moment on.
You can browse Pinterest for as long as you want without seeing the registration overlay on the screen a single time.
There is one limitation though. Your entry point to the site cannot be the homepage as a registration form is still displayed on it. Any other page, direct pin pages or user pages for example work just fine and let you browse the site unhindered.
A good entry point is the categories page for example which highlights different popular categories on Pinterest that you can browse.
The script has been removed from Greasy Fork. For now, I have re-uploaded the script on OpenUserJS:
https://openuserjs.org/scripts/Lazza/Pinterest_without_registration
No longer works.
Here is another tool that eliminates it perfectly as well as being able to be used in other websites.
https://github.com/rhardih/ekill
It’s a Chrome and Firefox plugin.
It works for me.
Thank you, this script is still updated (June 2018).
Hi! Now i managed to browse Pinterest, thank your script. But only after mofifiying it to catch all of it. Changed from *pinterest.com* to *pinterest*. Sometimes pinterest links have other domains like co.uk or similar.
Great work anyway, many thanks!!!
Opps, sorry, my thanks to Lazza for the script. ;-)
Thanks for the useful suggestion. I added a wildcard in version 2.1.2.
It prevents the login, unfortunately it also disables the links, preventing you from viewing the magnified image or following external links. It basically disables pinterest completely. This script is useless and not ready to be released.
Except it doesn’t do anything of that. It shows you a full sized preview of the pin when you open it and you can reach the original page by clicking on it:
http://imgur.com/gbCqSaA
Of course it would have required you to try it before performing your epic fail. Talking about uselessness, your comment is a masterclass on the topic.
You can bypass the unauthbanner in pinterest by using ABP’s (AdBlockPlus) “block element” feature.
Open Pinterest after installing ABP. Scroll down so that the whole-page banner shows. Select “block element” from the ABP drop-down. Select the element you want to hide (it will highlight when you hover over it). Finish by agreeing to add the rule to ABP. Done…no more annoying overlay. Browse pinterest without logging in.
Currently (Aug 19, 2016), there are three elements that I selected but only gets in the way.
inchrome right click >inspect>ctrl+f>type unauthbanner>
Works perfectly on Chrome with Tampermonkey. Many thanks!
Works! Thank you very much!
Thank you, I will look it up.
P.S. Where I wrote “Imagus” it should heve been “Behind the Overlay”, sorry.
Martin, thanks to you it’s fixed: it was an interference indeed: with another add-on called Privacy Badger.
Seems not to work any more on Firefox 45 ?
I just tried it using Greasemonkey in Firefox 45.0.1 and it worked fine.
Thanks for replying Martin, Greasemonkey and 45.0.1 is what I have too, but script doens’nt work anymore.
So I use “inspect element” and delete the node, as Imagus just works instantly after clicking, scrolling brings back the veil immediately, deleting the node works for the whole session. Anyway, no big deal, the Pinterest approach of potential customers is hateful, so I’m not planning to spend lots of time there, and:
“It’s a sad, sad place where uncreative people pin their hopes and dreams and leave them to die. And you can sometimes track down a good recipe for lemon bars.”…
I’m just curious why it stopped working since Firefox updates. Could it have something to do with me still using XP (and very much to my satisfaction I must say)? Everything is well protected, also via Hosts file, updates and cleaning twice a day.
Phil, I cannot say why it is not working on your end. Maybe another extension that interferes with it?
The script kind of works, also in safari. I just added it as bookmark.
sadly search functionality in pinterest doesnt get activated, so the whole thing is unusable.
Version 1.5 released today also shows a visible search bar on top.
I just ran a search on Pinterest (of course using DuckDuckGo with the “!pinterest” bang) and I confirm the script works also on search results pages.
Thank you for talking about my script. :) I discovered this post after a donor on PayPal mentioned it. It’s very interesting to see that there is the categories page freely available. I created it because sometimes Pinterest pages show up on Google, even if I don’t actively use the site.
I am thinking about adding a redirect that automatically redirects the Pinterest homepage to the categories page. What do you think about it?
Just to mention that an imposing attitude as a welcome on a network is not the way to go, and whoever decided to apply it will eventually burn in hell.
Hi I only use Chrome, not firefox as I don’t want to keep changing about. If you ever find a hack that works for Chrome please tell us? I’m sick of pinterest… Thanks
I am the author of the script. I browse the web daily using Chromium. As a matter of fact, the script was developed using Chromium and Tampermonkey. It is supposed to work on it. For me, it does.
Anyone tried on IE??
I had one request to read, but since its only one I`m not keen to registrate..
thanx,
If you’re using uBlock, please update to uBlock Origin. That may help. I’m using uBlock Origin on Chrome and Firefox now.
Martin, FYI you can get the same functionality in Chrome with the BehindTheOverlay extension: https://goo.gl/rkhRso
When you click on it the overlay disappears, but that leaves a blank screen on the home page. Go to any other page and it works as expected.
No problem installing in Chromium with Tampermonkey beta. Thanks.
It worked for you? Strange, I installed it in the latest Chromium with Tampermonkey and it did not work.
It Did use to work, not now it seems
I have been using BehindTheOverlay for a while also as it helps with various other websites which deploy similar techniques.
A fairly simple alternative (and effective) method to bypass this kind of incidental “blocking overlay popups” on all kinds of sites, not just Pinterest but any site that uses them, is this:
(1) Click Ctrl-Shift-i to bring up the Developer panel;
(2) In the panel’s selection bar, right-click the offending panel’s node (it should already be there) and select “Delete”;
(3) Click Ctrl-Shift-i again to close the Developer panel.
The login popup (or confirmation popup, or whatever it was) is now gone and the page is freely accessible.
There is a dedicated Firefox extension that fully automates this procedure: see BehindTheOverlay (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/behind_the_overlay/). This reduces the three above steps to one single quick click, without even showing the Developer panel. This extension works great in recent Firefox versions, but unfortunately it looks like it doesn’t work in Pale Moon.
I’ve created a Chrome extension for this as well:
https://github.com/endosynth/no-nags
“panel’s selection bar”
Please be more specific. I have a set of tabs across the top, which tab to select, please?
Once selected, which part of the panel is called the “selection bar”?
“panel’s node”
Are referencing html, here? Again, please define the term “node” Is this a in HTML?
Thanks for the tip, but we aren’t all Chrome developers. The developers’ panel isn’t all that complex, but the terminology, while explicitly instructive to those who know, is opaque to the rest of us. We should be able to follow along if we knew how these terms are used, please? Maybe a URL to where these are officially defined? Thanks.
“the offending panel’s node” …. which is … what??? where????
That depends on the site, although most of the modals will cover the whole page so you can just click on the modal background and get the right element immediately. The OP said «method to bypass this kind of incidental “blocking overlay popups” on ALL KINDS OF SITES» therefore one cannot give you a specific element name that will work for any site.
Chrome developer tools trick worked perfectly, thanks for the tip!
Tried this extension, and three steps on Houzz, but no luck.
Isn’t pinterest created for measurement of brand penetration and recognition over social networks? Because since day one I couldn’t find a real use of that site – it’s like archive view on tumblr.
Anyway, script can be quite helpful for those who can’t find original source due to pinterest locking features and positioning in google – which is sometimes really annoying.
I’m posting to confirm that the script also works for TorBrowser4.02 + scriptish.