Britishnewspaperarchive Reviews 

So disappointed with the changes to the website.
Prior to the July 2026 update I would have given 5 stars but now I only award 1.
I’m glad I’m due to renew my membership soon because I won’t bother as this site is no use to me.

I’m horrified at what has been done to this site. I found it so useful and efficient for local history research and paid for an annual subscription for years. It’s now like working in blinkers wearing thick gloves under officious restrictions. You can’t download a legible full page any more or get up a range of local newspapers for a set period. Is Findmypast trying to attact an American market or what? I won’t be renewing my subscription.

I am an academic researcher and long-time subscriber to this site and the recent changes have been horrendous to navigate, making vital discoveries I had found now untraceable and the site so much more difficult and clunky to use in every way. I use this for my job and the amount of anxiety these changes have caused me is unbelievable. Horrible site to use now.

A few months ago my review would have been five stars. I loved it and found searching and saving articles easy and effective. Now my research, over 4000 items filed under relevant headings, is no longer readily available - only the titles of the publication and the date. I’m fortunate to be towards the end of this particular project. What’s more, the user unfriendliness of this will result in having to print out research, rather than knowing it’s all stored neatly on the website - not exactly a green initiative. Did no one road test this first?

BNA's new presentation is nothing less than a shambles; This is a good example of 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'. the version that many of we subscibers have used for years, was clean, easily understood and versatile. What we have thrust upon us (for no apparent reason) is a model that management ought recognize, would be best to be binned immediately before further damage is done to the brand BNA.
Edit 21/8/2026; I have read the replies of other reviewers and must agree with comments made and the probable likelihood that comment from BNA is AI generated. There is no recognition of the damage being done or urgent response needed; just a review in time. Being an annual subscriber whose subscription is automatically renewed, I feel that I am now receiving an inferior product from that to which I originally signed up. Surely, this must come under the Trades Description Act. Unlike BNA’s reaction, I can now say I have reviewed BNA’s response and have decided to suspend renewal of my subscription (and advise others to do similar); BNA is in the fortunate position of taking money in advance and so will not notice until the bank does not fulfil their request to renew. I suggest the shortfalls be made up by the individual(s) who signed-off the poor product forced upon us.

I had been using what had been a wonderful site of information daily. Constantly checking "Today's". Uploads. Not any more. I subscribed regularly and for several years had annual subscriptions. Due to the upgrades and the ruination of the site I will no longer be a visitor to the site. So disappointed as it also helped in my genealogy searches. It's no longer part of my daily routine. What a shame. Thank goodness I didn't have an annual subscription this year.

After subscribing to the British Newspaper Archive since its inception and using it intensively for my research over many years I am profoundly shocked by the 'Upgrade' and introduction of the new website. The functionality, ease of access and user friendliness of the site have been effectively destroyed.
DC Thomson and the British Library should be ashamed and, hopefully, working fast to repair the damage and restore what we enjoyed previously. Why were any of the changes deemed to be necessary? Was a trial/pilot undertaken with existing users?

The new website layout actually makes using the site impossible. Things that took seconds to do and organise are now made very complex and confusing. All the notes attached to old saved stories are gone. A new 'workspace' option added - not sure what that is for or who asked for it.

This has gone from being my favourite place to spend a few hours to dreading having to use it. It's awful.

Bring back the old layout. Save your money and go elsewhere.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars
What a mess!!
What a mess!!! I loved browsing for hours, as a fun pastime. I just wonder what level of critical assessment and market research went into the launch of the new format. I don't believe that BNA will find a single user who feels that the new system is either an improvement or a pleasure to use. I can only imagine the level of frustration felt by those subscribers who use BNA for work related research.
I hope BNA will have a rethink, apologise and replace

The new system/website with Find my past is just awful. It is far from an improvement. I cant fathom why this change was agreed upon and signed off, as it makes no sense. I also had credits that have disappeared.

The new website, unfortunately, is extremely frustrating. Having been a paid subscriber for years I won't be renewing my subscription.

I have been saving articles relevant to various research projects for years and now I cannot search them and the notes that I wrote on them to describe what each saved article was about have all gone. Unbelievable.

I'm sure there were very valid reasons for trying to "upgrade" the website but this has obviously gone very wrong.

As a family historian, I'm going to have to remove the British Newspaper Archive from my list of recommended subscriptions for people - and it used to be top of the list.

Extremely disappointing.

This used to be such a brilliant source for historians, both amateur and professional. I have done years of research using the once brilliant site, paying my subscription each month. Now, all that is gone. My 100’s of saved folders are just a list, there is no way to search them, you have to click on each folder to see what it is as it only tells you the date you saved it, not the date of the newspaper.
The search facility is now so hard to use and despite me knowing that an article is in a certain newspaper, it doesn’t find it anymore. It is exactly the same as Find my Past and what is the point in having 2 subscriptions?
They have not consulted with their paying customers at all. They did not warn us that they were remove our years and years of research, or making it unusable. Had I known, I would have downloaded all my folders and cancelled my subscription.
Do not take out a subscription for this site until they listen to their subscribers and revert it back to how it was.

Since the launch of the new site around July 28th 2026, nothing works as it should.

I have been in touch with customer support via two routes pretty much every day since, with no resolution.

Cannot zoom in on articles, the clip and save is awful (it saves a blurry image that cannot be read), you cannot save to your previous bookmarks to keep all your articles for one subject in one place.

Even Customer Support cannot fix my account to restore my credits. I have asked for a copy of the Terms and Conditions that applied prior to July 28th, and advised that could take a long time as Customer Support don't have access to that and have to seek special permission first. Odd.

I'm convinced the occasional responses here from BNA is now generated by AI when the review is not complex, with no response at all if it is.

I'm only opening free articles now and I am not saving them to my account's workspace (I tried one) as I don't trust them to keep anything safe now.

On the matter of safety. I don't trust them to keep any data safe. Anyone else notice that if you navigate to the payment page, it's not secure? Be careful.

The new website makes it impossible to see at a glance the newspapers you are interested in have been updated. The only way is to check the newspapers that you are referencing everyday which means less time can be spent on looking at fresh sources. Sorry can not recommend this site to other family historians. Hopefully, they will take on board thie criticism and provide a user friendly website or at the very least revert to the old one.

They have ruined what was a simple, efficient website with a new cumbersome format. I will not be renewing my subscription.

Having paid for a yearly subscription since Jan 2021, this week I have found they have changed the website.
It is not user friendly. Searching for anything is time consuming and infuriating.
I have lost my bookmarked research, many hours of searches.They are now in a list that is indexed by publication date and who published with no other identifying text to determine who it relates too.
I requested a refund for what remains of my paid year to be told I was out of my cool off period. How is that for customer service!
I paid for a subscription based on originally being impressed whilst paying per view and feeling a subscription was worthwhile.
I don’t feel the new format is an improvement and isn’t what I subscribed too. There was no notice of these changes to consumers.
I intend to seek professional advice on this as it is not ‘as described’.

I have been using the archive for years (and paying the subscription fee), and I almost wept when I first tried to use the new site. But I told myself to calm down and give it a chance. 'It might not be as bad as you think it is', I said. I was talking rubbish.

I have sat squinting at the screen to see the pages that won't zoom in, waited while the site takes eight seconds to bring up the save as pdf option, searched for the same term in eleventy different ways and none of them worked, put everything in quotes and had them ignored, thumped my keyboard in frustration and fury so many times that I might need new keys, and I have come to the conclusion that, however bad it appeared at first, the site is a million times worse that I thought possible.

I am a professional researcher. I am in the middle of writing a book, and I had all of my bookmarks sorted so I could find what I needed. Now I have the saved newspaper pages but no way to know what's in them without opening each one; and the only way to find the relevant content is to read the whole page! Years of research that is useless now.

They have taken a site that worked and ruined it. And, more importantly, they have so negatively impacted the lives of those who depend on being able to use the site for research that many of us will miss deadlines, lose money, lose time, and possibly hair, given the amount of pulling mine is getting at the moment. They didn't just make a few changes; they stamped all over our work. They didn't just change the way the site works; they took away the results of research that we have already paid for.

They obviously didn't think about the site's actual users. I mean, how many of us want to click five buttons to do what used to take one click? Or wait ten seconds for what used to take less than one? And why move absolutely everything about, so nothing is familiar? You even have to click another button just to see what the newspaper's name and publication date are when you're viewing an individual newspaper page! Why in god's name is that not automatically displayed?

Ultimately, there's no point in an archive that you can't search properly. The site is not fit for purpose. It's certainly not what we have paid for.

For some reason I found after the recent upgrade that I couldn't access full text even though my subscription was up to date. I emailed Support and had a response 24 hours later. It appears I had managed to setup two conflicting accounts. Thank you, Vicky, for sorting this out quickly.

I’ve used this website both as a subscriber and non-subscriber for a number of years in order to research both personal and British history. Was one of the best research platforms around that only required a tiny amount of tinkering to make it perfect. So what on Earth have you done? It’s no good saying you can’t revert back because if you don’t you are going to lose many thousands of subscribers and new customers.

Why change something that was simple and very easy to use, very disappointed in the new format. I doubt very much if I will renew my subscription.