New 33 Ways to Watch Free TV Online 2011
Well, duh. We had
to start with the big one. Not much to say here except: user uploaded
videos, lots and lots of them, all free. Yeah, and lawsuits, too.
Another
much-hyped favorite from the authors of Skype is still in beta stage,
but i actually delivers on all fronts: P2P system for delivering
content; solid amounts of good content, great GUI, almost glitch-free
work, quality video. If you can snag an invite, you’ll be in for a
treat.
Babelgum
is similar to Joost in two ways: P2P-based content delivery, and free
but ad-supported content. The service is in open beta, and everyone is
free to try it out, although the amount of daily downloads is limited.
Channels include news, music, documentaries, sports, animation, and
others. The content plays smoothly, and the interface is great, although
not as polished as Joost’s. Hint: don’t give up if the video doesn’t
start immediately; it takes some time to buffer it and there’s no
visible indication that it’s happening.
A
p2p-based online television with a downloadable client focused on
European (over 50) channels. Unfortunately, it won’t work if you’re not
from one of the supported countries.
Veoh
has a slightly different concept than other services on this list.
Their downloadable player acts like a VCR: you can save movies to it for
later viewing. Although it’s possible to watch videos online on the
Flash version of the Veoh player, the focus is on offline (or at least
desktop) viewing, and videos longer than 45 minutes can be viewed only
on the desktop player. Available videos include both user generated
content as well as professionally produced, sometimes copyrighted stuff.
NGTV,
which is short for No Good TV, is the television you don’t want your
daughter to watch. Or at least it tries to leave that impression: in
reality, it’s similar to what kids see on TV everyday: lots of music
& entertainment, lots of foul language, and long, long intros for
every episode.
Democracy
is actually a media player which you can use to watch media files on
your hard drive. But, the difference is in that it also lets you connect
to all of the big video hosting sites and many independent publishers.
Finally, it’s a media organizer, which lets you bundle all that offline
and online videos into one neat collection. The result is a great online
video experience that’s not quite as effortless as Joost, but it sure
beats visiting all those video sites and podcasts and looking for stuff
by hand.
Episode
network is a large link list, pointing to videos around the web.
They’re not hosting any of the videos on the site; but bear in mind that
since the material includes blockbusters and entire TV series
downloading the stuff might be just a tad illegal.
One
of the biggest video sharing sites around, Dailymotion is as old as
YouTube, and nearly as successful. Unlike YouTube, it’s still not sued
by every media powerhouse under the sun, so you can still find a lot of
good stuff there. For a list of TV series available at Dailymotion,
check out
this site.
Although
Google has bought YouTube and Google Video is slowly fading out of the
picture, it’s still a very large video sharing site with tons of content
and an UI that wouldn’t mind a makeover.
BlinkX
is a video/audio search engine which claims to have indexed over 12
million hours of video. Since it’s a search engine, you’re hardly gonna
be able to sit back, relax and enjoy the shows, but it’s great for
finding that elusive video you think you saw three weeks ago but you
were too drunk to remember what’s it’s called or what’s it about.
A
windows media player based video portal offering a large selection of
TV channels. Simple layout and interface, very little annoyance.
Freetube
is one of those sites that keep it simple: no downloads, no
subscriptions: only lots of neatly categorized shows. It didn’t work all
that well for me, but some users say that it’s their favorite service,
so try it out.
A
shoddy and confusing (actually, largely nonexistant) interface on this
one ruins much of the fun, but if you manage to find them, there are
some good shows here (watching Prison Break as I write this).
Guba
is a combination of video sharing and video rental, which means you’ll
have to pay for some of the content. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of good
stuff to be found in the free part of the site. GUBA enables download
of the videos to your PC, iPod, PSP, and other portable devices. The
site is also unique for the fact that it finds content on USENET groups.
A
directory of links to TV streams, organized by country. You might get a
bit frustrated using it because many of those streams don’t work, and
they come in a variety of formats. The directory itself is quite
comprehensive, covering most of the world’s countries with at least one
channel.
Blip.TV is a
video sharing site that focuses on user-crated shows. This means less
noise and more coherence than YouTube, and some of the stuff on here is,
indeed, quite enjoyable. A great place to find the next Spielberg, or
at the very least the next Larry Clark.
Another list of streams with an insultingly tiny Windows Media Player to watch the content in. Use only if desperate.
Stage6
is a video sharing site built to demonstrate the quality of the DivX
codec. It sports a sleek interface and a large selection of videos.
You’ll need a special plugin to access the videos – the DivX web player –
but the quality of DivX-encoded videos makes it worth your while.
TCUnetworks
is a China-based P2P TV company, which means you’re mostly be able to
find Chinese channels there, but some of the content is in English, too.
A very rudimentary list of links to various video content.
Tape
If Off The Internet, or shorter TIOTI, is a service for tracking your
favorite TV shows. The service has been around for a long time –
since 2005 – and it’s still in beta, which is not a good sign. Read our initial coverage
here.
While
the page itself is just a (quite ugly, we might add) collection of
links to various streams, there is some good content to be found here.
TV
Links is another one of those which fall under the “can this possibly
be legal?” category. It’s a nicely organized collection of links to
episodes to popular TV shows. Enjoy it while it lasts.
A selection of ABC shows, will work only for visitors from the United States.
A
carefully handpicked selection of rare and interesting movies collected
from various online sources. It’s a small but intelligent selection,
and most movies on the list are definitely worth watching.
A
selection of downloadable TV shows and movies, including some very
popular ones like Buffy, 24, Pimp My Ride and others. Also includes a
quite comprehensive selection of anime.
On
its MySpace page, Fox is offering several of its popular TV shows for
free – if you’re located in the United States. Some love for the
Europeans, please?
A
nicely organized list of episodes from the most popular current shows,
like Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, and 24. Is it legal? We don’t know, but it’s
there. Make sure to expand that tiny video player to (almost) fullscreen
size.
Another
one of those long lists of categorized streaming content that opens in a
Windows Media Player. They index over 300 channels, and, as they say,
some of them have to be good.
ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX free TV episodes in one place. It’s not much, but it’ll save you some time.
An ugly, but quite comprehensive list of TV shows, cartoons, anime, music and commercials.
ITV
is the biggest commercial television network in the UK, and you can
watch some of their content for free on their website. Unfortunately,
it’s nothing like the real thing; instead of full episodes and shows,
expect highlights, trailers and short clips.