Preamble.
Quora (and other websites) arbitrarily require users to log in to view articles. Communities inherently require the contribution of many, and Quora seeks to incite participation through the quick and easy creation of an account. Unfortunately, no solution exists for lurkers who wish not to log in or to create an account. This quick get-around allows you to use AdBlock Plus’ layer disabling abilities to hide that which obscures your view of the article.
Prerequisites.
AdBlock Plus, for Chrome, is required for this method. AdBlock Plus is a nifty extension that, well, blocks ads–and its implementation of what its creator’s sought out to do is both elegant and all-encompassing. AdBlock Plus even blocks YouTube ads so effectively that many users had been oblivious to their existence until an encounter with a pre-video advertisement on the computer of a peer or colleague.
Website: https://adblockplus.org/
Concept.
What we’re going to be doing is using AdBlock Plus’ “Block Element” feature to block the divs/spans that Quora is layering on top of its content page.
Instructions.
1. Navigate to a Quora page that prompts you to log in. Make sure you have AdBlock Plus installed.
The two layers we seek to block are:
(1) The dark grey layer covering the entire page, and
(2) The login prompt in the foreground, preventing scrolling.
2. Click on the AdBlock Plus logo. It should be located on the right of your URL bar.
3. Once you’ve clicked the AdBlock Plus logo, click on “Block Element”.
After you’ve done this, a dialogue, as shown below, should show up.
4. After clicking the ‘Block Element’ button, ABP allows you to pick the page ‘elements’ you wish to block. The grey layer and the login box are two separate elements which will both need to be blocked.
(i) Go ahead and select the dark grey background layer. It should highlight itself in yellow upon your cursor’s hover.
(ii) Once you’ve clicked anywhere on this yellow area, a prompt should show up. Click ‘add’ to add the background element to the blacklist.
(iii) Repeat steps 3, 4 (i), and 4(ii) but select the login prompt itself this time.
(iv) Hit the add button.
5. The end result should be the Quora page itself, without the prompt or the grey, disabling background that previously appeared.
Note: The motivation behind Quora’s requiring people to log in beyond their threshold of page views motivates itself by the necessity of new users to a community. If you can, in fact, contribute to Quora, please do so. I intend for this post to serve as a simple proof-of-concept that AdBlock’s element blocking abilities are quite powerful.