Roku tweak unlocks free hidden library with ‘thousands’ of legal movies inside and you’ll get 250 TV channels as a bonus

DOWNLOADING a single Roku app instantly upgrades your TV with hundreds of channels plus thousands of movies and TV shows.

The app doesn't have any upfront fees or subscription costs – but lets you watch an enormous library of content.

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It's called Pluto TV and it's a no-cost download for Roku devices.

To "pay" for it, you'll simply need to watch commercials that occasionally interrupt your viewing.

Pluto says that it offers over 250 live TV channels that you can view at any time.

And it promises "thousands" of movies and TV shows available for on-demand watching.

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Pluto also vowed to add seven new channels in September, as follows:

• Acapulco Shore
• Cheers + Frasier
• La Familia del Barrio
• ONE Championship TV
• Pluto TV Novelas
• Queens of Reality
• WOW – Women of Wrestling

"Pluto TV is the leading free streaming television service delivering hundreds of live linear channels and thousands of titles on-demand," Pluto explained.

"We curate a diverse lineup of channels, in partnership with hundreds of international media companies, offering a wide array of genres, languages and categories."

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The app holds a 3.8/5 score on Roku's Channels list, based on nearly 2,000 viewer ratings.

Its vast library makes it one of the biggest free ad-supported streaming services out there.

LIVING THE STREAM

Of course Pluto isn't the only game in town when it comes to watching free TV legally on Roku.

For a start, you'll want to try The Roku Channel – the default way to watch TV on your streaming device.

It has more than 400 free channels plus over 80,000 movies and TV shows.

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

Then there's rival service Amazon Freevee, which also boasts 400 channels as well as 15,000 on-demand movies and shows.

If the name is unfamiliar, that might be because it was launched as IMDb Freedive, eventually rebranding to IMDb TV and then ultimately Freevee.

Plex is another great option with an ad-supported library of channels totalling 1,100 – 800 of which are available in the US.

You may have missed this because Plex began as a way to stream your own saved media files.

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.

But in late 2019, it launched an ad-supported streaming service.

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All of these free apps are great alternatives to the likes of Netflix, Amazon Video, and Hulu.

Importantly, those premium apps all have paid-for plans that also show ads, so viewing commercials isn't necessarily a big problem.