Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better, Third Edition

Hack 56: Bypass Free Site Registration with BugMeNot

Level Easy

Platforms All

Cost Free

Many websites require you to register on them for free and to sign in with a username and password to view their contents. An active surfer can easily accumulate dozens of logins for various sites across the Web. But what about when you don’t want to go through the whole rigmarole of registering for a website — you simply want inside?

The website BugMeNot (http://bugmenot.com) maintains a public database of shared usernames and passwords for free websites. If you come across a site that prompts you to log in to view its content, bypass the registration process by heading to BugMeNot to search for an already created username and password. Not all BugMeNot logins will work, but you can see the percentage success rate for a particular login and report whether it worked for you as well. If you can’t find a BugMeNot login that works, create one and share it with the BugMeNot community.

Following are three ways to use BugMeNot:

• Enter the address of the site you want to log into on http://bugmenot.com to get a list of possible logins. Copy and paste the login you choose to the input fields on the website you are trying to view.
• Drag the BugMeNot bookmarklet from the BugMeNot homepage to your web browser’s bookmarks toolbar. (For a more detailed explanation of bookmarklets, see Hack 95, “Get 10 Useful Bookmarklets.”) When you come to a site you’d like to log into, click the bookmarklet and get login ...