Open Access Helper

Name: Open Access Helper
Rating: 5 (1 reviews)
Author: Open Access Helper

Effortless legal access to full text scholarly articles: Open Access Helper will help you identify legal open access copies of academic articles, using unpaywall.org and core.ac.uk

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Open Access Helper is a Chrome extension designed to simplify access to scholarly articles. It helps users locate legal, free-to-read versions of paywalled scientific papers by leveraging trusted APIs from unpaywall.org and core.ac.uk. Users simply browse an article, and the extension detects its DOI to find available open access versions. The extension distinguishes between "Published," "Accepted," or "Submitted" versions to inform users about the article's status. Additionally, it supports integration with university libraries using EZProxy or OpenAthens, allowing seamless off-campus access by configuring the institution's domain.

This tool ensures 100% legal access to research papers, respects user privacy by not collecting personal data, and welcomes the developer community through its open-source platform. Open Access Helper empowers students, researchers, and the curious with effortless scholarly article access, enhancing academic and scientific research workflows.

Add-on Education Productivity Open Source

By:

Daily users:

Rating:

Version:

2025.6 Last updated: 2025-06-01

Version code:

5960656

Creation date:

2020-10-24

Risk:

Permissions:

tabs
storage
contextMenus
http://*/*
https://*/*
*://*/*
https://www.oahelper.org/backend/institutes/

Size:

420.46KB

Email:

in*****@oahelper.org

URLs:

Website ,Privacy policy

Full description:

Source:

Firefox Browser Add-ons

Updated:

a day ago

Ranking

# 6,309 ▲ 18

Other rankings

#12 in free access keyword 66

#12 in legal keyword 2 ▼ 1

#31 in ai study helper keyword 30 ▲ 1

#42 in identify keyword 41 ▼ 1

#63 in article keyword 48 ▲ 1

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Other platforms

Open Access Helper Web (v2025.6)

4,000 5.00

(1)

Open Access Helper Web (v2025.6)

3,031 4.50

(2)

User reviews

Great upgrade to the unpaywall extension! Since I am/was a user of that extension, OAHelper's color scheme confused me: I associated a green badge with green Open Access, i.e. the OA version is available at a different location; and a gold badge with gold Open Access, i.e. it is available "here" at the publisher. OAHelper does it the other way around, which is based on a different philosophy (green = all is good, stay here; orange = oops, you don't get it here). But given that OA levels are associated with colors, did you consider to flip those two colors - or provide an option in the settings? I have a feature request: the unpaywall extension treated the link in the badge as a regular link, so that on hover, one could see the target URL in the status bar. OAHelper does that different, so that one has to click the badge to know where it leads. Any plans to make it a regular link like the unpaywall extension did? Thanks for your work! Highly appreciated.

by Fi*****, 2022-11-06

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Extension safety

Risk impact

Risk impact measures the level of extra permissions an extension has access to. A low risk impact extension cannot do much harms, whereas a high risk impact extension can do a lot of damage like stealing your password, bypassing your security settings, and accessing your personal data. High risk impact extensions are not necessarily malicious. However, if they do turn malicious, they can be very harmful.

Open Access Helper requires some sensitive permissions that could impact your browser and data security. Exercise caution before installing.

Risk impact analysis details

Critical Grants access to browser tabs, which can be used to track user browsing habits and history, presenting a privacy concern.
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Risk likelihood

Risk likelihood measures the probability that a Firefox add-on may turn malicious. This is determined by the publisher and the Firefox add-on reputation on Firefox Browser Add-ons, the amount of time the Firefox add-on has been around, and other signals about the Firefox add-on. Our algorithms are not perfect, and are subject to change as we discover new ways to detect malicious extensions. We recommend that you always exercise caution when installing a Firefox add-on.

Open Access Helper is probably trust-worthy. Prefer other publishers if available. Exercise caution when installing this add-on.

Risk likelihood analysis details

High This extension was recently updated in the past month. New updates may not be stable or safe.
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Low **** ********* *** ***** **** **** * ****** **** ***** ********** *** **** ****** ** ** ****** *** *****
Good **** ********* *** **** **** *******

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