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Netflix-crushing ‘hidden’ freebie for Roku and Fire Stick adds 92 live TV channels legally plus 50,000 movies and shows
There's a good reason why it's seen as a 'hidden' freebie
A POPULAR but easy-to-miss app unlocks a vast trove of free television on your streaming gadgets.
You can download it without paying any upfront fees or subscription costs.
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It's called Plex TV and it has one of the biggest selections of free 24/7 channels on Roku and Amazon Fire Stick devices.
The big advantage versus premium streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, or HBO's Max is that Plex TV doesn't cost a penny.
It's totally free because it's supported by commercials, so you will have to sit through some ads.
"Our goal is to bring a wide assortment of content—from big studios, independent producers, and more—from around the globe to you for free," Plex explains.
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"In exchange, we’re asking for a bit of your time to watch some ads.
"Even so, you can expect a notably lower ad-to-content ratio than you’d experience with typical broadcast television."
If you're willing to watch those ads, you'll be able to claim more than 800 live TV channels in the United States (and over 1,200 globally).
That's including the 92 new channels that Plex added in July.
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The company has added hundreds of channels this year, marking an enormous expansion.
There's also a healthy selection of on-demand content, with Plex serving up over 50,000 movies and TV shows.
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The reason why Plex might not be an obvious streaming choice is that it wasn't always a free TV app.
For most of its life, Plex didn't offer free TV.
Instead, it was mainly a way for you to stream personal content that you had saved to a screen of your choice.
For instance, you could store your home movies on a storage device in your house – and then watch them on a laptop somewhere else.
Stream swapping – the easy way to cut your bills?
Here's what , The Sun's Head of Technology and Science, thinks...
It's no secret that TV streaming apps are costing more and more.
Not only are prices shooting up, but we find ourselves asked to pay for an increasing number of apps and services.
And when you combine those TV bills with your music streaming, mobile and internet fees, and every other drain on your bank account, it all starts to get a bit much.
One of the best ways to cut your TV bills is to simply cancel all of your streaming subscriptions and only sign up to one per month.
Pick an app like Netflix, Disney+, or Apple TV+ and smash through all of the content you want to watch on that app.
Then the next month, swap to something else.
And once you've done them all, you can cycle back to the start again.
It's an easy way to avoid forking out for a rolling library of streaming apps with more content than you could possibly watch.
Also don't forget that paid-for streaming isn't the only game in town.
There are loads of apps that don't cost a penny to enjoy, and downloading a few will unlock thousands of live TV channels plus tens of thousands of movies and shows.
Try apps like Tubi, Amazon Freevee, The Roku Channel, Plex, and Pluto TV to get some ad-supported television without having to pay any monthly fees.
It functioned as a sort of personal Netflix, and you can still use Plex for the same feature now.
But in late 2019, Plex began offered its own free service that let users enjoy ad-supported TV streaming.
This was separate from the media server feature (which is linked to the paid Plex Pass and doesn't include any ads).
Now Plex TV is one of the most popular and content-packed free streaming apps out there.
FREE STREAMING! Apps offer no-cost TV
Here are some of the most popular apps that offer at least some free streaming content...
- Tubi
- Amazon Freevee
- Plex TV
- The Roku Channel
- Sling Freestream (via Sling TV)
- FilmRise
- NewsON
- Fawesome TV
- Pluto TV
- Local Now
- Haystack News
- Red Bull TV
- Free Movies Plus
- PBS Kids Video
- PBS
- Xumo Play
There's a watchlist feature that lets you save content that you'd like to view later.
And you can also set up parental controls by creating a managed user profile for your child.
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Creating a free account will also let you resume synced playback on any device.
And you'll be able to add favorite channels for live TV.
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