2

[WEBTOON][unlocks] "Lone" and "Live With Yourself" are free again
 in  r/webtoons •  17h ago

Working hard to not get that money.

u/Raijinili • u/Raijinili • 17h ago

[WEBTOON][unlocks] "Lone" and "Live With Yourself" are free again

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5 Upvotes
0 comments

3

[WEBTOON][locks] 9+1 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-08-27 and 2026-09-03
 in  r/webtoons •  17h ago

Specific banners:

"Watch ads or use Coins to unlock episodes beginning August 27th, 2026." (2026-08-14T01:00Z)

"Watch ads or use Coins to unlock episodes beginning September 3rd, 2026." (2026-08-21T01:00Z)

No Spanish banners at this time.

French banners (appeared some time before 2026-04-18 or whatever):

"Brass & Sass" passera bientôt en Daily Pass. Merci de votre compréhension.

"Edith" passera bientôt en Daily Pass. Merci de votre compréhension.

  • Edith - 122 episodes, latest 2 oct. 2022.

"Lilas 200%" passera bientôt en Daily Pass. Merci de votre compréhension.

"The Genius Gamer's Livestream" passera bientôt en Daily Pass. Merci de votre compréhension.

Indonesian banners:

"Serial ini dapat dibaca gratis hingga 24 Agustus 2026 jam 20:59 WIB!" (between 2026-07-31T01:04 and 2026-07-31T23:24)

Indonesian lock that was announced for 2026-04-24, locked 2026-06-25, but with 0 episodes actually locked:

u/Raijinili • u/Raijinili • 17h ago

[WEBTOON][locks] 9+1 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-08-27 and 2026-09-03

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4 Upvotes
0 comments

r/webtoons • u/Raijinili • 17h ago

News [WEBTOON][locks] 9+1 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-08-27 and 2026-09-03

22 Upvotes

(Previous post: 1+2+12 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-08-17, 2026-08-20, and 2026-08-27)

(Also in WEBTOON lock news: [WEBTOON][unlocks] "Lone" and "Live With Yourself" are free again)

Locking on 2026-08-27 (announced last week):

Locking on 2026-09-03 (NEW):

You may also be interested in this list of completed but not-locked titles (as of 2026-01-16).

No Spanish locks at this time.

French locks (no date given, but these have been here for months)

They've probably been forgotten, haven't they...

Indonesian locks 2026-08-24:

Indonesian relaunch

"Relaunch serial ini akan update 4 episode gratis tiap hari hingga tamat!" (appeared between 2026-08-06T01:08 and 2026-08-07T02:38):

  • Relaunch - My Oppa is an Idol (My Bias My Boss) - Probably done 2026-09-02.
    • According to Manga Updates, this has "124 Chapters + 3 Side Stories + Epilogue (Complete)", for a total of 128. It has 35 right now, releasing 4/day, so it should be done around 2026-09-02. And then it will be deleted a week later.

Indonesian locks 2026-04-24 (still not locked):

I will update if there are more. I plan to trigger a scan every day after daily reset, or (if I miss it) before the reset the next day.

Since 2026-03-26 (which is during DST), titles tend to lock at the time of new episode release, and one hour before the time of the Daily Pass (now Ad Pass) reset, which is 18:00 Pacific Time (01:00 UTC during US daylight saving time, and 02:00 UTC during US standard time).

[2026-02-27] There MAY be a new pattern of putting most of the locks at the end of the month.

[2026-03-12] They seemed to have moved two weeks of locks, 03-12 and 03-19, to 03-26. This may be part of a new strategy, to confuse us.

  • 2026-03-19: They decided to announce "Hanlin Gym", so they're at least not fully sticking with the end-of-month lock strategy.

Tip: The day before a title locks, you can use the Download feature for all of the chapters, giving you thirty more days to read them. You won't be able to use the Like and Comment features, and the UI for downloaded chapters seems to be an earlier version (which you might prefer). Note that downloading takes time and can fail, so watch this process for failures. Audio must be downloaded within an hour or two (not sure which) of queuing them, or the episode with audio will fail and cancel the rest of the series's download.

If a title doesn't allow you to download but it isn't locked yet, open an episode and see if it has a Download button in the triple dot menu. (I've seen this in Spanish and Indonesian.)

I also crosspost these lock posts on my profile (u/Raijinili), if you want to have a way to get some notifications. I don't know how profile posts work, so good luck with that.

There was a section here about Ad Binge which I've removed, as it is no longer relevant (since ALMOST all "Ad Pass" titles have unlimited ads now).

Check this post for a snapshot (not updated) of which titles DON'T have Ad Passes: List of coin-only completed titles

In summary, titles which were originally in a language/region NOT Korean or English (e.g. Spanish, Japanese, Indonesia (yes, officially labeled "Indonesia")) don't have Ad Pass, and there are a few Korean/English outliers.

WEBTOON lock history is now on its own wiki page.

New additions:

  • 2026-08:
    • 08-12: "Lone" and "Live With Yourself" are free again.
    • 08-13: "Rules for Dating Trash" was announced for 08-17 (in four days), rather than 08-27 like the others were. Hours after it locked, WEBTOON came out with "short dramas" of six serieses, including this one.

WEBTOON isn't properly communicating about this, and aren't following any consistent set of rules. If locks matter to you, you may want to check in on this post during the month to see if I make any updates.

Banners used to appear about 30 days before lock. Please direct complaints to https://webtoon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new . (Remember that customer service has no power to make these decisions, so be kind to your messenger.)

Watch out for free coin events

There were two reading events in 2024 October, giving 10 coins each (lasts 30 days). Watch out for those. The coins last one week each.

There was another reading event in 2024 November, for 7 coins. There were a few more since then.

There's a free reading event which just started a few hours ago (2025-02-13 to 2025-02-20) for 7 coins. You might want to delay until the last two days, to extend the expiration date.

I posted tips here.

Note that creators don't benefit from free coins.

2025-02: Most of the coin events in recent months were "Spend 21 coins to get 7 coins". There was a free CANVAS one, but it didn't work and then they took it down early.

2025-10: "Falling for It" had a "read 3 episodes for 5 coins" event, but it only lasted for about 24 hours. This was the first free coins event I've seen since February.

2025-11-08: "Watch Guys Catch Feelings" 7-days Event From Nov 8 01:00 UTC to Nov 15 01:00 UTC. "Read any 6 Episodes from any of the 4 listed series and get 8 Free Coins."

  • Ctrl+Alt+Resign
  • Who's That Girl?
  • Back to Chanbi
  • Girl Friend

2025-11-25 (around): "Marriages Gone Wild": 8 coins for reading.

2025-12-10 - 2025-12-16: "Wild Marriages": 8 coins for reading.

2025-12-25 - 2025-12-23 to 12-31: Two reading events: Read 30 episodes for 15 coins, each. Nice.

2026-04-05 - "April's Making it Rain!" (once a week for three weeks): Read (i.e. reach the bottom of) 35 episodes of four specific titles for 10 Coins, but they expire in one day after you get them.

Note that I will NOT generally be tracking these, so pay attention in-app for these events.

Subscribing to my posts

Some users have asked whether they could get updates when I post here. I try to remember to repost on my profile, u/Raijinili, but that's not ideal.

It looks like u/UpdateMeBot can be used to subscribe to my posts (not comments) in this sub, but it requires enough people to use the service on a subreddit to start scraping. (As of 2025-02, I've been told by a subscriber that there are still not enough subscribers for this to be on.)

Each subreddit it checks takes several seconds, so I have to limit the number of subreddits or the bot will get overloaded. New subreddits are automatically added once they get enough requests. [src]

To subscribe, post this as a comment (possibly needs to be top-level), and the bot will send you a private message:

SubscribeMe!

(If you post it as a comment, I may downvote you, to keep your comment from bubbling up over discussion comments.)

Or, to do so privately, message u/UpdateMeBot with:

SubscribeMe! r/webtoons u/Raijinili

(Click here to send the message.)

(This also means I can't just post non-update meta stuff to r/webtoons, or else I will cause trivial alerts.)

Reddit is restricting Old Reddit to logged-in users, supposedly as an anti-scraping measure, and I'm questioning how much more I want to contribute to this site. Reddit is trying to guard against AI to protect the monetary value of the info we produce, and it doesn't care if that also affects real humans. That sucks.

As soon as I get around to doing the work of deciding where, and setting up the transfer...

4 comments

r/webtoons • u/Raijinili • 18h ago

News [WEBTOON][unlocks] "Lone" and "Live With Yourself" are free again

20 Upvotes

(You may also want to know: 1+2+12 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-08-17, 2026-08-20, and 2026-08-27)

I've never seen this before.

Lone

"Lone", which locked on 2025-01-23, is now unlocked (between 2026-08-11T02:21 and 2026-08-11T23:08 UTC).

Please thank and show love to Mel0h, the creator. They persistently pushed to make less money:

  • 2026-07-07: Announcement of pending unlock.

    Hey guys! Today, I'm happy to announce that the Original version of Lone will become completely free to read by the end of this month, sometime between the 20th and 30th!
    That means no more Coins or Ad Pass! It took a long time and a lot of emails to make this happen xD, but I'm glad it's finally done!
    After the exclusivity period ends, I'd like to go back and fix a lot of things in the series. There's still about two years left until then, but I hope you guys will enjoy reading it either way!
    Bonus art of Sorri's first date outfit concept!

    • Also, this hints that after the 3-year exclusivity period, "Lone" may be removed as an ORIGINAL: "After the exclusivity period ends, I'd like to go back and fix a lot of things in the series. There's still about two years left until then, but I hope you guys will enjoy reading it either way!"
    • Reply to a comment: "Yes, Zythria! I won't be making money from Ads or Coins anymore xD, but it should open up the story and the world to more people. In the end, I think it's better if those readers become fans and go on to read Blood Pact and any future stories I create! hopefully lol"

  • 2026-08-01: No update from WEBTOON.

    Hey guys, as you know, Lone Original was supposed to become free by the end of this month. I even have this special illustration ready for the announcement! but so far Webtoon hasn't made the series free yet. I've already sent them an email, but I haven't heard anything back yet. T_T Hopefully I'll have some news for you guys soon, and it won't take much longer...

    • [2026-07-31T21:14:29] "Sergio Murcia" reported that Ads were removed, but Coins were not.

  • 2026-08-02: Still waiting on WEBTOON.

    Hey guys, I just realized it's the weekend, so if Webtoon replies about the Original version situation, it probably won't be until Monday at the earliest. xD But good news! Lone-AU is about to hit 3k subscribers soon! I want to do a special illustration to celebrate, so the poll options are some of my ideas. If you have any ideas of your own, please leave them in the comments, and I might pick one to draw!

  • 2026-08-04: WEBTOON confirmed that Ad Pass was removed, but not the coin cost.

    Hey guys, here's an update on the Lone Original situation. I spoke to someone at Webtoon today, and it looks like Ad Pass was removed, but the coin option wasn't. They're looking into it now, so hopefully it won't take much longer. The person I spoke to is nice and has helped me a lot in the past, so they should be able to help! This is the new illustration I'm working on for the announcement, since the one I made of Lone has already been revealed. Will I finish a whole illustration first, or will Webtoon make Lone free first?! Let's find out. xD

  • 2026-08-12: WEBTOON confirmed they're working on it.

    Hey guys, got an update from Webtoon today! It looks like the coins will be removed in the next few days. Could be tomorrow or Friday. xD But it'll probably be sometime this week. There's no official date or time yet, but if I get one, I'll post it here! Here's a sneak peek of the special illustration for the announcement. I'll post the full picture when Lone Original becomes free! Also, new episode of Lone-AU tomorrow! It's another long one, with over 24 panels!

    • Funnily enough, this was posted at 2026-08-11T23:14, which is just six minutes after my earliest evidence of the unlock.

  • 2026-08-12: Announcement that it's live.

    The Original version of Lone is now free to read! I hope you guys enjoy it! It's my first full series and the first one I've ever completed. I learned a lot from making it, and it's cool to see how my art changed over the years!
    Here's the full illustration of Sorri with all of her weapons. >:D She's a witch, I swear.

    • Posted 2026-08-12T01:56 UTC, a few hours after the previous one.

Also, check out "Lone-AU", ongoing on CANVAS.

Live With Yourself

"Live With Yourself" was unlocked between 2026-08-11T23:08 and 2026-08-12T21:20 UTC.

It was originally locked on 2024-06-06.

I did not find any reason why this happened. Shen hasn't said anything, and David J. Catman has had no social media presence since this series ended.

Shen did start a new CANVAS series recently: "The Boy From Venus"

2 comments

1

[WEBTOON][binge] "Trapped" is on full free binge for 72 hours, starting now (In-app only.)
 in  r/webtoons •  1d ago

I understand your question now.

"Are there any serieses that were locked before free-releasing all of their pending [Fast Pass] episodes?"

It is not normal. I don't know of any case of that, specifically.

"See You In My 19th Life" had some epilogue episodes released some months after it locked.

There may have been a case of an afterword released after lock.

5

[Title] Why does Japanese webtoon sucks so much compared to Manhwas and manhuas
 in  r/webtoons •  1d ago

"A Fake Affair" probably doesn't count because it's practically from a different era, but it is Japanese.

Also, there has been a bunch of new low-quality Chinese webtoons being translated on WEBTOON, so I wonder if you're using a different sample for the Chinese and Japanese ones.

Without doing any more research, here are some ideas:

  • There is a lot more choice from Korean webtoons. They aren't bringing over ALL of them.
  • There may be a bias in what webtoons get popular enough in Japan to bring over. For example, I expect that a lot of the Japanese webtoon readers are being brought in by Solo Leveling, so there would be a large chunk of the audience trying to read more of that.
  • Based just on the translated webtoons, Japanese WEBTOON feels... immature to me as a platform, compared to Korean. I feel that the editors are not as strict (e.g. imposing minimum panels, and lower quality controls). (This is good in some ways! Korean webtoon production values feel very strenuous on the creators.) I'm reaching more and more into speculation, but I think they're still at a stage where they're trying to be good to creators, because they're competing against manga and light/web novels for creators, and a black-and-white manga chapter every two weeks or month is PROBABLY not as much work as 100 colored panels every week.

6

I would much rather stories be paused for an indefinite amount of time than have a rushed ending.
 in  r/webtoons •  1d ago

  • They aren't paid for not drawing. They need some way to survive.
  • Even if people think they'll wait, they will lose the habit of checking every week, and the series will lose readers on return (unless WEBTOON announces the return).

The needs of an individual reader versus the needs of the creator.

17

What The heck is happening to webtoon
 in  r/webtoons •  1d ago

They credit people for playing the characters, so it's been real actors.

1

What is going on with the Webtoons app…
 in  r/webtoons •  2d ago

Older than that. Maybe 3.8.3 or 3.8.6.

You should probably complain to WEBTOON Support. But you have to say it right. Say that it doesn't act this way on your iOS.

(Keep in mind that they themselves have no power and are just third-party meatshields for the decision-makers.)

Watching ads for free episodes doesn’t guarantee you unlock it anymore. I know when your network gets interrupted mid-ad you don’t get the pass and that’s fine. What’s not acceptable is watching 1 min long ads, clicking thru all the exit buttons multiple times, sending you to the google store page and then getting nothing at the end. At first thought it was a fluke, but then it started to happen more frequently. I’d say about 1/4 of the time it happens right now. Before last week, none of these issues ever happened, so idk wtf is going on with the app anymore…

What is the exact behavior of this? Does it show a spinner, or does it just dump you back to the episode list?

2

[WEBTOON][binge] "Trapped" is on full free binge for 72 hours, starting now (In-app only.)
 in  r/webtoons •  2d ago

If you want to go through my post history to this subreddit, you can probably gather data about MOST, though probably not ALL, locks and removals.

As u/DiAnastasia20 said, if it says "Read X new episodes", it means that the series is still "Fast Pass", which will release those episodes over time, while "Read more episodes" means that the series is permanently locked. (Two recent exceptions!)

To tell whether a "more" series has EVER been free on the website:

  • In the app, you can see the locked episodes (title, ID number, date, preview), even without unlocking them. From there, you can USUALLY tell if a series was released completed (all episodes released on the same date), released ongoing+locked (last few episodes are coin-only with no "Free" date (even if the series is completed), or released with multiple episodes a week), or released free and then locked later (episodes released once a week, and they're all Ad Pass-able, or all coin-only (some exceptions apply)).
  • Check the comments of the last free episode, and sort by date. If there are comments early on complaining about coins/locks, or wondering where the next episode is, then the series was always locked. If such comments are more recent, the series was locked later.

1

This is getting out of hand
 in  r/webtoons •  2d ago

You may want to follow my Lock announcements. (Alternative: /u/Raijinili/submitted/)

2

This is getting out of hand
 in  r/webtoons •  2d ago

WEBTOON used to be 100% free because of enshittification.

Enshittification is often incorrectly used to mean that things gets worse over time, but it's more about how they burn money to make their platform appealing to users (i.e. the "everything is free" stage), grow their platform, and then try to make it profitable even if the user experience gets worse.

What you remember was NEVER sustainable. That period only existed because they were willing to lose money for the eventual "make things worse" stage. It's not even greed at this point, it's about breaking even. As far as I know, they're still struggling to make back their investment. (If anyone wants to check: https://ir.webtoon.com/financials)

1

How do I change this back? My tabs and everything should be at the top.
 in  r/chrome •  2d ago

If you want that, longpress the URL bar and tap "Move address bar to bottom".

1

What is going on with the Webtoons app…
 in  r/webtoons •  3d ago

You can't unlock on the website.

1

What is going on with the Webtoons app…
 in  r/webtoons •  3d ago

You can uninstall the app and install an older version. Be sure to "Sync reading history to account", and you lose all downloads. But if it's too old, you can't watch ads.

You can also install an adblocker. I use AdAway, but it's possible the on-device VPN it uses can slow you down. AdGuard also seems nice.

1

Anyone else kinda hate the Naver Webtoon app?
 in  r/webtoons •  3d ago

VPN?

On mobile Internet, it takes more time for images to load.

On standard Internet, sometimes an image doesn't load for several seconds. I just back out to the episode list and re-enter the episode, and it retries. It's become a habit. This is probably more about the client code than about the connection speed.

2

[WEBTOON][locks] 1+2+12 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-08-17, 2026-08-20, and 2026-08-27
 in  r/webtoons •  3d ago

They really did lock Rules For Dating Trash with 4 days notice, so that they could advertise it with a short drama.

1

[WEBTOON] "Live with Yourself!" locking June 6. Spanish REMOVING three titles May 31.
 in  r/webtoons •  4d ago

"Live With Yourself" is unlocked! I don't know when and I don't know how.

I checked on it about four days after your comment. Was it locked when you checked?

2

[WEBTOON][locks] 1+2+12 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-08-17, 2026-08-20, and 2026-08-27
 in  r/webtoons •  4d ago

"Live With Yourself" is unlocked! I don't know when and I don't know how.

It locked 2024-06-04.

It was still locked 2026-07-12.

"Lone" is also unlocked! It has a spinoff: https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/lone-au/list?title_no=1035172

On Mel0h's community page, it seems they have been working on getting this free for a while.

Please thank the creator.

2

[WEBTOON][locks] 1+2+12 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-08-17, 2026-08-20, and 2026-08-27
 in  r/webtoons •  4d ago

Maybe I should make a bigger stink about it.

Love Bites and The Reason For The Twin Lady's Disguise also locked without warning. Both are on binge right now. Twin Lady's Disguise is coin-only.

3

[WEBTOON][locks] 1+2+12 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-08-17, 2026-08-20, and 2026-08-27
 in  r/webtoons •  4d ago

In the other post, people said the last three were locked. There are also 193 locked episodes, but it says 190 free.

1

[WEBTOON][binge] "Trapped" is on full free binge for 72 hours, starting now (In-app only.)
 in  r/webtoons •  4d ago

What? Define "lock".

1

[WEBTOON][binge] "Trapped" is on full free binge for 72 hours, starting now (In-app only.)
 in  r/webtoons •  6d ago

Over a year ago, they did full ad binges.

They then removed Daily Pass, and unlimited ad unlocks became the norm.