ParseForge
404 Media Articles Scraper
parseforge/404media-articles-scraper
News & mediaOther
Scrapes the latest articles from 404 Media, returning title, URL, author, publication date, and full text as flat rows. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
- Total users
- 1
- Monthly active
- 0
- Total runs
- 99
- Bookmarked
- 0
- Rating
- Not rated yet
- Last modified
- 12 days ago
Overview
404 Media Articles Scraper
Scrape 404 Media articles, from the latest posts to a full archive, up to a million per run. Each article comes with its title, URL, author, publication date, and full text. No login or API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
404 Media is a journalist-owned publication covering technology, hacking, and internet culture, but it has no public API and its content is scattered across the site. This Actor reads the public article feed directly and returns each article as a clean, flat row. You get the latest stories or a deep back catalog, ready for analysis, monitoring, or archival.
| Who uses it | What they scrape 404 Media for |
|---|---|
| Journalists and media analysts | Monitor 404 Media's coverage of specific tech topics or breaking stories |
| Researchers and academics | Build a dataset of 404 Media articles for content or discourse analysis |
| Content curators and newsletter writers | Automatically pull the latest 404 Media headlines and summaries for roundups |
| SEO and content marketers | Track 404 Media's article output to identify trending topics and keywords |
What it does
This Actor collects 404 Media articles from the public feed and returns each one as a flat row with title, URL, author, publication date, and full text.
- 📰 Latest articles: Fetch the most recent posts from the 404 Media homepage feed.
- 🔢 Configurable volume: Set the maximum number of articles per run, from 1 to 1,000,000.
- 📄 Full text extraction: Each row includes the complete article body, not a snippet.
- 🗂️ Structured output: Every article is returned as a flat object with consistent fields for easy export.
Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.
What you can do with 404 Media data
📡 Monitor breaking tech news.
A newsroom sets the Actor to run hourly with a low maxItems value to capture the latest 404 Media articles and feed them into an internal alerting system.
📚 Build a research corpus.
An academic researcher runs the Actor with a high maxItems value to collect a year's worth of 404 Media articles for a study on technology journalism.
📧 Automate newsletter content.
A newsletter curator schedules the Actor daily to pull the newest 404 Media headlines and summaries, then formats them into a weekly digest.
🔍 Track topic trends.
A content marketer collects 404 Media articles over several months and analyzes the full text to identify recurring themes and keywords for their own content strategy.
Why choose this scraper
| What you get | |
|---|---|
| No API key required | Access 404 Media's public feed without registration or authentication. |
| Full article text | Get the complete body of each article, not titles or excerpts. |
| Scalable collection | Collect up to a million articles in a single run for large-scale analysis. |
| Multiple export formats | Save results as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML for use in any tool. |
How it compares
No other Store actor targets 404 Media the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.
| 404 Media Articles Scraper | Build it in-house | By hand | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Run it now, zero config | Days of engineering | None, but hours per pull |
| When 404 Media changes | Maintained for you | You fix it | You re-learn the page |
| Proxies, retries, anti-bot | Built in | Your problem | Browser only |
| Output | Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export | Whatever you build | Copy-paste |
| Cost | Pay per result | Engineering time | Analyst hours |
Configure the run
Drive the Actor with a single setting: the maximum number of articles to collect per run. It reads the public feed and returns each article as a flat row. The Input tab lists every parameter.
A first run with the defaults:
{
"maxItems": 10
}
A larger pull:
{
"maxItems": 200
}
Pricing
Pay-per-result: $0.021 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.
| Results collected | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| 100 results | $2.10 |
| 1,000 results | $21.00 |
| 10,000 results | $210.00 |
New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.
Free users
Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.
Run it
- Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
- Open the 404 Media Articles Scraper.
- Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
- Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.
Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.
Use with AI agents (MCP)
Give an AI agent live access to 404 Media through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:
claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/404media-articles-scraper"
Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.
Troubleshooting
Why am I getting no results?
Check that the maxItems value is set to at least 1. If the 404 Media site is temporarily unavailable or its feed structure has changed, the Actor may return an empty dataset. Try running it again later.
Why is the run taking so long?
A high maxItems value means the Actor must fetch and parse many pages. Reduce maxItems if you only need recent articles, or increase the Actor's memory in the run settings.
Why are some article fields empty?
Occasionally, an article may be missing an author or publication date on the source site. The Actor returns whatever is available, so empty fields reflect missing data on 404 Media.
Can I get articles older than what the feed shows?
The Actor only reads the public feed, which may be limited to recent articles. For older content, you would need a different approach, such as crawling the site's archive pages, which this Actor does not do.
FAQ
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Do I need an API key or login to scrape 404 Media? | No. This Actor reads the public article feed directly, so no authentication or API key is required. |
| What data does each article row include? | Each row includes the article title, URL, author, publication date, and full text. The exact fields are shown in the sample output. |
| How many articles can I collect in one run? | You can set the maximum number of articles from 1 to 1,000,000. The Actor will stop once it reaches that limit or the feed is exhausted. |
| Can I filter articles by topic or author? | This Actor does not support filtering by topic or author. It collects articles from the main feed in chronological order, newest first. |
| How often should I run this Actor? | For monitoring, run it on a schedule, such as hourly or daily. For archival, a single run with a high maxItems value is sufficient. |
| What export formats are supported? | You can export the results as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML directly from the Apify platform. |
| Is this Actor affiliated with 404 Media? | No, this is an independent scraper built on the Apify platform. It is not endorsed by or affiliated with 404 Media. |
| Can I scrape articles from a specific 404 Media category or tag? | Currently, the Actor only scrapes the main article feed. Category or tag filtering is not supported. |
Related actors
Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.
🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.
⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by 404 Media. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.
Input
| Field | Type | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| maxItems | integer | How many articles to collect per run. | 10 |
Pricing
from $19.00 per 1,000 results
| Charged for | What it is | Price each |
|---|---|---|
| result | Single result in the default dataset. | $0.019 to $0.021 |
Tiered: the lower figure is the price on a higher Apify plan. Billing and the free credit live on Apify.
API
One POST returns the dataset directly. Same shape for every scraper in the library, so swapping the slug is the only change.
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/parseforge~404media-articles-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"helloWorld": 123
}' Examples
Input that runs as-is.
{
"helloWorld": 123
} Reviews
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Issues
We build and maintain this scraper, so a problem with it comes to us. Report it on the Apify listing and the thread stays attached to the scraper where the next person can find it: open an issue.
Broken and urgent, or you would rather not post in public? Write to parseforge@protonmail.com and it reaches the people who wrote it.