Britishnewspaperarchive Anmeldelser 

As a user of the website since 2017, the recent upgrade to it absolutely destroyed under a decade of work. They've made the new version absolutely inoperable. Breaking stuff and charging us for the pleasure of it seems to be the way with all companies now, sadly.

A real people person on the line.
Marion listened and sorted everything, very efficient and very positive.

Very much continuing to enjoy using the archive for my research and have been finding things easily. Some great finds regarding my family in local publications which I’ve been able to share. I like being able to review the new publications available to see if anything of interest to me.
Would like to see improvements on the text transcribed as it can mean I miss things at times.

Interesting to see that 'unprompted reviews' giving BNA 5-stars for customer service (ie changing an email address) are actually prompted by BNA in a desperate attempt to improve the ratings. Surely that breaks Terms of Service, claiming a positive review is 'unprompted' when, in fact, people are being asked to give 5 stars...

Change of email. I sent a request for my email to be changed. Sophie replied to me extremely quickly and it was really appreciated.
Great service, Sophie. Thank you

Dreadful upgrade recently which has made the whole user experience very painful indeed. Removal of certain features around the dates , error messages saying limits have been exceeded and a substandard search engine. Sadly the collective feedback tells you a story and the standard responses from the BNA mean many subscribers will now seriously reconsider renewing their subscription.

I have often used the British Newspaper Archive for research and have found it invaluable over the years. There have been recent changes to the site's format and charging process and these alterations initially looked prohibitive to future engagement. However, I spoke to Sophie (via email) through the archive's website and she explained clearly and patiently how the changes work and why they were implemented . Her response was very useful and have ensured that I not only will continue to use it but am able to get more out of it when I do.

The BNA site is unusable - too many pointless options that you have to scroll down to or over to reach, as well as wasted space on the left hand side of the screen that could be used better, so that some of the options fit onto the screen better. So many of the problems with the new format seem such rookie mistakes. You know what makes this new format even worse, is that it is no longer any fun. Unfortunately, I only recently renewed my subscription - would love a refund, as unless they make some changes, I can't bring myself to use the site again. So so disappointing, can't imagine how professional researchers must be feeling.

What have you done!
I have tried to get used to the new search layout, I really have but what use is having the best archive of content if I cant find what I want! I have tried to repeat search's done in the past and could not find articles I had found with the old layout. Luckily my subscription runs out in November so I will not be renewing

I was happy with the old version of the website, but have now cancelled my subscription due to the user unfriendly re-vamp. Please go back to the old version.

I have been using the website for many years and have found it extremely useful and well organised. Now it is really difficult to navigate and just a horrible experience. Other people I know are also saying the same thing. I will not be renewing my subscription.

New site is awful. Difficult to navigate. Time consuming and labour intensive. Not impressed at all.

Since the so called improvements, it's rubbish!
For instance i can find my dad's info on BNA but it's not on FMP 8 pages! Yes 8 pages!!! . Paying for a service that is not working. Not happy at all. I hate it!
There is more on BNA than on FMP, it was soooo easy to use & get around quickly but now it's just cack!
Don't just say sorry,just please put it back as it was.
Going to be a lot of lost revenue quicker that you realise. About time those who came up with this mad idea faces reality & admit THEY ARE WRONG!

It appears that any complaint regarding the recent downgrade to the BNA site is met by an AI generated response pointing towards a 'blog' giving the reasons for the changes. I can't speak on behalf of other subscribers, but the 'reasons' for the changes are of no particular interest to me as a user, my only interest is in the 'result' of those changes. For me the result is that BNA is unusable for my method of research, for BNA the result is another lost subscriber. Who wins? What manner of business model is that?

I am absolutely furious and deeply disappointed with the recent changes to the British Newspaper Archive website.

The new interface is far less user-friendly and has turned what was previously a straightforward and efficient research tool into something unnecessarily complicated, time-consuming and confusing.

The new search function in particular is ridiculously overcomplicated and, in my experience, simply does not work properly. Previously, searching was quick and intuitive. You could enter specific search terms using inverted commas to find exact words or phrases, then easily use the sidebar to narrow down the results. It was simple, flexible and efficient.

Now, instead of being able to carry out a straightforward search, you are required to fill in multiple boxes and work through a far more complicated process. Even worse, the "exact search" function does not appear to return accurate results. Searches that should be simple and precise produce irrelevant or inaccurate results, meaning you have to spend even more time trying to find information that was previously easy to locate. A search function is one of the most fundamental parts of a research website, and the new system feels unnecessarily complicated and, frankly, not functional.

As if that wasn't bad enough, you have made it clear you do not care about your customers AT ALL, this is shown in the way saved articles and bookmarks have been handled.

Over a considerable amount of time, I carefully saved and organised articles relating to family history. I labelled bookmarks and assigned them to different family lines so that I could easily identify who each article related to and why I had saved it. This was an important part of my research and represented many hours of careful organisation.

Those carefully organised records now appear to have been reduced to a meaningless list of newspaper pages, with zero information linking them to the person, family line, event or time period they relate to. I am now faced with a pointless long list of saved newspapers 'my records' and I have no idea who or what any of them apply to because the only information provided is the name of the newspaper - that is it!!!

This has destroyed the organisational system I spent countless hours creating. It is not simply an inconvenience — it has made my previous research null and void. All that time and money spent for nothing.

I cannot understand how such a major redesign could be implemented without preserving users' carefully created labels, categories and organisational information. For a website aimed at historical and genealogical research, where users may spend years building collections of material, this is an incredibly damaging oversight and shows just how little regard you have for your customers.

The new website feels like a significant step backwards. The interface is confusing and time consuming, the search system is unnecessarily complicated and inaccurate, and valuable functionality that made the site useful for serious research appears to have been removed.

I have been a loyal paying subscriber for nearly 10 years, but I am so disappointed and frustrated by these changes that I will not be renewing my subscription when my current term expires unless the site is significantly improved or reverted back to the way it was. After almost a decade of loyalty, it is incredibly frustrating to see a service I once found invaluable become so unusable.

The new British Newspaper Archive website update has ruined the research workflow. BNA has completely removed the sidebar that showed search result counts by decade at a glance. Instead of instantly seeing when a historical event peaked and drilling down by year/month, we are now forced to filter completely blindly. A task that took three seconds now takes twenty minutes of guesswork and endless page reloads.

As a paying subscriber, this platform "upgrade" is a massive step backward for genealogists and researchers. Please restore the classic sidebar filter and stop breaking core search tools! #BritishNewspaperArchive #Genealogy #FamilyHistory

Joanna quickly and effectively resolved an issue I had with my subscription.

They’ve wrecked a perfectly good site, ignored every warning from long‑term subscribers, and rolled out a system that is slower, clunkier, and far harder to use. Years of saved research have been reduced to useless lists, search results are now unreliable, and basic navigation takes twice as long.

The worst part?
They clearly don’t care. The replies to reviews are copy‑paste corporate apologies that never address the actual problems — exactly what you’d expect from a service that knows users have no alternative. When you’re the only large‑scale digitised British newspaper archive, you can degrade the product and still expect people to pay.

I’ve subscribed for 8 years, but I won’t be renewing.
Until BNA stops acting like a monopoly and actually listens to the people who fund it, this “upgrade” will remain one of the most damaging decisions they’ve ever made.

The new format is dreadful - it just doesn't work. Previously the site was not particularly good but it was passable. In its current form it is simply unusable. After 5 or 6 years of subscribing, I shall not be renewing.

I find the site almost unusable since the change to the GUI. I assume the thought they were modernising it but instead it made it so counter intuitive.
It is so bad that I no longer enjoy even trying to find what I am looking for with the new search procedure. I have been with them on annual subscription for a few years now but I WILL NOT BE RENEWING!