Few weeks ago I’ve published a blog about my Google Chrome extension that allowed to read paid content on SME.sk for free.
Some people asked me to look at some other portals that are using Piano media system.
So I did…

I was looking at same “bugs” like on SME.sk and I found at least two other portals that have the same problem. The first one is hnonline.sk and second one is etrend.sk.

HNonline.sk

In HNonline.sk they are using xml feeds to provide content for mobile app. They have several feeds for different sections on their page.

HNTouch[10281] : URL https://apiserver.hnonline.sk/content/fallback/xml/list/titulka/
HNTouch[10281] : URL https://apiserver.hnonline.sk/content/fallback/xml/list/finweb/
HNTouch[10281] : URL https://apiserver.hnonline.sk/content/fallback/xml/list/ekonomika-a-firmy/
HNTouch[10281] : URL https://apiserver.hnonline.sk/content/fallback/xml/list/slovensko/
HNTouch[10281] : URL https://apiserver.hnonline.sk/content/fallback/xml/list/svet/
HNTouch[10281] : URL https://apiserver.hnonline.sk/content/fallback/xml/list/hnstyle/
HNTouch[10281] : URL https://apiserver.hnonline.sk/content/fallback/xml/list/nazory-a-analyzy/
HNTouch[10281] : URL https://apiserver.hnonline.sk/content/fallback/xml/list/sport/

Whole articles are in the feeds, so there is no need to get article from some URL. The only problem is to map articles in the feed with articles on the web.

eTrend.sk

eTrend.sk hase the same issue as sme.sk. They have only one endpoint for mobile content.

http://www.etrend.sk/services/IphoneAppDict.html?deviceType=1&device=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX&quality=lo&queryType=articleDetail&uid={ARTICLE_ID}

This url is public and anyone can access it. So it was simple to update my extension to deal with this type of content.


The weird thing is that it works on both subscription models. So you can read article with Piano system and also articles that are available only to (magazine) subscribers.
It is really shame, because in the mobile app you need to use login and password to access content from magazine. They are using some sort of authentification, but after that they just serve content and don’t care if user is authorised or not 🙁

You can try my extension but please buy a subscription. This extension is made only for test purposes and it should stay that.
You can find extension here.

I’ve contacted hnonline.sk and etrend.sk so they know about the issues and hopefully they will do something about it (not like sme.sk).

UPDATE 2013.05.20 – It seems that developers at hnonline.sk are really quick. They fixed it already.