> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.reader.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Auth walls and hostile sites

> When to use premium mode, what Reader can't do, and how to spot a site that won't work.

Some pages won't load for any non-human request no matter what you do. Others work fine but require the right mode. This guide is about telling them apart and picking the right strategy.

## What Reader can handle

`premium` mode gets you past:

* **Bot-detection walls.** Cloudflare's "Checking your browser", Akamai, PerimeterX, Datadome, similar.
* **Rate-limited "come back later" pages** that serve bot-looking clients a different response than humans.
* **TLS fingerprinting** that tries to distinguish automated clients from browsers.
* **Most JavaScript challenges** where the page runs a small script before letting you in.

For these, set `proxyMode: "premium"` and you'll usually get clean content:

```ts theme={null}
await reader.read({
  url: "https://shop.example.com/item/42",
  proxyMode: "premium", // 3 credits/page, bypasses bot walls
});
```

## What Reader can't handle

**Anything that requires an authenticated session.** Pages that load only when you're logged in (your Gmail inbox, your LinkedIn feed, internal tools, most "my account" sections) are off-limits. Reader doesn't have your credentials and doesn't manage cookies across requests.

If you need content from a page that requires login, you have two options:

1. **Use the site's official API** if they have one (most authenticated experiences do).
2. **Scrape it yourself with your own session** and point Reader at the public version if it has one.

**Content behind paywalls.** Reader respects the paywall: you get the preview, not the full article. This is both a technical limit and a deliberate one.

**CAPTCHAs that require human interaction.** Reader's premium mode handles most automated challenges but won't solve a visual CAPTCHA. If a page pops one of those, the scrape will either time out or return the challenge page as content.

## Spotting a hostile site early

If your scrapes are failing with `upstream_unavailable`, `scrape_timeout`, or are returning very short `markdown` that doesn't match the real page:

1. **Check `metadata.statusCode`.** A 403 or 429 from the target means a block.
2. **Check `metadata.proxyMode`.** If you forced `premium` but still failed, the site is hostile beyond what Reader handles.
3. **Open the URL in your browser.** If you see a "Checking your browser" interstitial or a CAPTCHA, Reader is seeing the same thing.

## Forcing premium from the start

When you know ahead of time a target is hostile (Amazon, LinkedIn, booking.com, ticketing sites, some news aggregators), use `premium` mode directly:

```ts theme={null}
await reader.read({
  url: "https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08N5WRWNW",
  proxyMode: "premium",
});
```

Reasons to do this:

* **You get clean data on the first try.** Standard mode will fail on these sites; skip it and go straight to premium.
* **You get a cleaner error signal.** If you force premium and it still fails, you know the site is beyond Reader's reach.

The cost is 3 credits per page. For a known-hostile target, that's the right tradeoff.

## When nothing works

If you've tried `premium`, `waitForSelector`, and custom extraction and the page still won't load, the site is probably actively hostile to all non-browser traffic. Report the URL to our Discord and we'll take a look. Sometimes we can tune our handling for a specific site, sometimes the answer is "no, this one's out of scope."

## Next

* [Choosing a proxy mode](/home/guides/advanced/choosing-a-proxy-mode)
* [Cloudflare and anti-bot errors](/home/guides/troubleshooting/cloudflare)
* [Dynamic content](/home/guides/advanced/dynamic-content)