Unpaywall

Legally get full text of scholarly articles as you browse.

Unpaywall Chrome Extension

Unpaywall empowers researchers and students by providing easy access to the full-text versions of scholarly articles while you browse the web. With a vast index of 20 million free, legal full-text PDFs, Unpaywall automatically searches for available copies whenever you view a research article. If a legal version is found, a convenient green tab allows you to read it immediately.

The extension exclusively links to legal author-posted manuscripts hosted on university and government web servers, maintaining compliance with publisher permissions. This means you can confidently access 'Green Open Access' papers that authors have self-archived legally. Explore scholarly articles hassle-free with Unpaywall!

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By:: https://unpaywall.org
Users:: 800,000+
Rating:: 4.02

(258)
Version:: 3.99 (Last updated: 2025-01-08)
Creation date:: 2020-02-28
Risk:: Low risk impact Very low risk likelihood
Permissions:: storage
Host permissions:: *://*.oadoi.org/*
Size:: 686.08K
Email:: ex*****@unpaywall.org
URLs:: Website ,Privacy policy
Full description:: See detailed description
Source:: Chrome Web Store
Updated:: 16 hours ago

Ranking

# 514 ▲ 60

Other rankings

#2705 in Workflow & Planning ▼ 6

#7 in article keyword 20 ▼ 1

#15 in free access keyword 76

#25 in legal keyword 2 ▼ 3

#26 in author keyword 10 ▼ 1

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Other platforms

Unpaywall (v3.98)

72,081+ 4.35

(242)

User reviews

Pros

Makes scientific research more accessible
Works quickly and legally to find free alternatives
Saves time searching for legal open-access versions of manuscripts
Has been a lifesaver for many in academia
Generally easy to use and practical

Cons

Does not work on certain popular sites like Medium and WSJ
Inconsistent success rate in finding papers
Some users report it stopped working suddenly
Limited functionality on non-English or specific country sites
Many users feel it does not help with paywalls effectively

Most mentioned

Accessibility of scientific research
Does not work on many popular sites
Inconsistency in finding available articles
Functionality being impacted by Chrome's updates
Users expressing frustration with limited capabilities

These summaries are automatically generated weekly using AI based on recent user reviews. User reviews may be inaccurate, spammy, or outdated.

User reviews

Nou, die werkt niet hoor !

Reinier van der Sandt, 2025-03-27

No sirve de nada. Pongo una estrella porque no deja poner ninguna, si no, ni eso.

Raouf ElHusseini (Malek Al'Nar), 2025-03-26

Great app for downloading paper.

Md Ishtiak Ahmed Sajib, 2025-03-20

View all user reviews

Extension safety

Risk impact

Unpaywall requires very minimum permissions.

Risk impact analysis details

High Injects scripts into web pages, which may alter or extract site contents, resulting in a substantial risk.
Low ******* ****** ** *** ********* ******** *********

Risk likelihood

Unpaywall has earned a good reputation and can be trusted.

Risk likelihood analysis details

Low This extension was updated more than 6 months ago. Older versions are more likely to be stable and safe.
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