Hidden Roku trick means ‘you don’t need’ to pay TV bills as fans obsess over four apps for 305,000 free movies and shows
ROKU fans are raving over a selection of free apps that unlock an almost endless supply of movies and TV shows.
The free downloads also give you hundreds of free TV channels – and they’re totally legal.
Streaming bills keep getting higher, so fans are trying to find ways to cut their monthly spend.
And some TV watchers are now turning away from costly apps like Netflix or Disney+ and switching to free alternatives instead.
Writing on a Reddit forum dedicated to saving money, one TV fan said: “There is a lot of great content on free streaming services, you may not need the paid ones.”
They continued: “What I found once I started exploring these is they actually may be better in some ways than the premium services,”
“You don’t need the latest shows/movies. They will all be on other services in a few months/years. In fact the older content is often higher quality.
“There are a ton of shows/movies in all kinds of genres, a lot of which you simply don’t have any other way to watch.
“The apps are just as good as the premium ones, in some cases even better.
“Yes there are ads, but all the premium ones like Netflix, Prime, Disney, Paramount, Hulu all have ads too in the basic tier.”
The user named four apps that will give you free TV on a streaming device like a Roku or Amazon Fire Stick.
The first is Tubi, which gets you more than 260 free live channels.
And it also has an on-demand selection of over 240,000 TV episodes and movies.
Second on the list was Pluto TV, which is easily one of the best-known free streaming options.
Pluto promises over 250 live channels, as well as “thousands” of free movies and TV shows.
Third up was Amazon Freevee, which is available on the company’s own Fire Sticks – but also on rival Roku devices.
Stream swapping – the easy way to cut your bills?
Here’s what Sean Keach, 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.
Amazon Freevee has over 500 free live channels plus an on-demand library of over 15,000 TV shows and movies.
And fourth was Plex, which you may not have realized offers free TV streaming.
That’s because Plex began its life as a way to stream your own saved media to a screen of your choice.
It meant that you create could your own kind of personal Netflix.
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
But Plex launched a free TV streaming service at the end of 2019.
This has quickly become a popular option for people trying to cut down on their monthly streaming bills.
Plex offers over 1,100 channels globally (more than 800 of which are available in the US), as well as over 50,000 movies and TV shows.
What all of these free apps have in common is that they’re supported by ads.
So if you’re willing to put up with commercials, you can save a load of money each month by ditching those premium apps.