IT'S ONE THING

to pay a subscription fee for web content delivered from a site you know and love. But let's say you just want the occasional article? Paying for a subscription is just an annoying waste of money.

Congoo NetPassSeveral sites offer content from multiple sources. Libraryo.com Depending on the site, you can make between four and 15 free visits to paid-content per month.

Over time, that can add up to substantial savings. An annual membership to Encyclopaedia Britannica, for example, would regularly cost you $69.95 ($84.95 if you also wanted access to Merriam-Webster Unabridged). But by using the Congoo toolbar, you can access five articles a month.

Here's how it works:

Download the toolbar
The toolbar works with both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. When you sign up, you'll be asked for basic personal information (name, age, zip code, etc.), so that your subscription information can be used to automatically log onto the sites you'd like to access. Downloading the software doesn't mean your Internet activities are being tracked. The only information the software logs is the number of articles you've accessed relative to your monthly limit.

Conduct a search
You'll see both premium results i.e., those from subscription-only sites and regular ones, courtesy of Yahoo Search. Click to access paid content, and your subscription information is filled in automatically. (Prefer Google or another search engine? No problem a small pop-up box on the toolbar will alert you if there is subscription content that matches your search.) Another pop-up box will alert you when you're one page view away from your monthly limit for a particular site.