originally posted by: Voyaging
I would definitely stay clear from sites that require you to sign up for movies, unless they are well known like netflix, or hulu, or amazon. The
sites that have movies illegally usually have mal-ware attached to their sites that will attempt to infect your computer.
WARNING: LONG POST but worth it I hope
mostly warning about free sites and then giving my opinions on the pay sites.
Something to consider though... whether you sign up or not, your IP address is still contained in access logs on the hosting server ( unless they
kindly disable logs... I doubt it ).... so all it would take is for the feds to raid the place hosting the server, view the logs and then go back to
your ISP to find out which customer had that IP address during that time..
If you're wanting to watch movies online for free then either way you're taking a big risk unless you use some of anonymous proxy or VPN service...
and even then you have to read the fine print.. there are some VPN services out there that do not maintain logs and do not associate IP addresses to
customer's in any way.. which means unlike your ISP, they have no clue who had an IP at a given time.
This is why I make use of legitimate services
I'm a huge movie buff ... I use Amazon Prime/Instant .. Netflix and Hulu ... Amazon Prime is great
because I pay a yearly fee for it and I not only get a huge catalog of movies for "free" included with that subscription, they also often have movies
that are still in theaters.. or sometimes BEFORE they hit theaters.. that and with prime you also get free shipping on a lot of products.. oh, and
they have prime music now too so you can listen to a lot of "free" music as well .. no I'm not affiliated with Amazon
Just to go the extra mile.. I'll give my own pros / cons on movie/tv streaming services.
Amazon:
Pro: Pretty large catalog of films and tv shows, alot of them are free with your prime subscription.. that and you get the bonus of free shipping and
prime music.. They also have a lot of premium content and if you don't want to buy a movie because you're iffy on whether or not it's good.. you can
opt for a pretty cheap 24/48 hour rental.
Con: You can't pay monthly for it.. you pay annually, but that's not too awful.. last I checked I think it was $79.00/yr but they are raising it to
$99 soon which would put it at $8.25
Netflix:
Pro: Massive catalog of films and tv shows.. they also have some excellent netflix exclusive/original content like House of Cards and Orange is the
New Black.. They also resurrected the awesome show Arrested Development which gets a new season soon .. ONLY available to netflix... You can also pay
monthly instead of annually ( $8.99/mo )
Con: While they have a massive catalog and some great original content.. the massive catalog has quite a bit of junk in there.. Movies you've never
heard of, or could never care about.. but unlike Amazon, ALL of that content is included with the subscription.
Hulu:
Pro: Excellent source for TV shows and you get more up to date content.. a show will often appear on Hulu within hours of airing, but most usually a
day after.. It's also FREE so you can't really go wrong.. and you don't need an account to watch either, though I think for some shows/movies you do..
Con: Yes it's free, but unless you upgrade to Hulu Plus you will have some limits.. for example not every show/movie in their catalog is included in
the free service.. and unless you have Plus you won't get entire seasons.. you will get the last couple of episodes in most cases. Another HUGE con
for me is the commercials.. I understand them for the free accounts .. but even if you upgrade to Plus you STILL get commercials.. only they are
shorter and less frequent.. it's $7.99/mo
Youtube:
Pros: There are movies to be found that people have uploaded.. though once reported they don't last long, still.. there's quite a few if you know what
to look for.. same for tv shows
.. It's obviously entirely free which is a bonus.. You're also far less likely to get in trouble viewing stuff
there since basically all youtube does is respond to take down requests by removing the offending video.
Con: There's no catalog really so it's pretty much just search and hope for the best... Often in the case of movies or hour long tv shows you will
find that they are in parts .. you might find a movie that is split into 15 parts and part 14 is missing
I personally use Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu Plus ( despite the annoying commercials ) ... so I'm paying about $25-$26/mo for content if you add it
all up and break it down by month.. not including rentals and purchases that aren't included with Amazon Prime.
By using all of those services together it's guaranteed that I'll have something to watch.. and what's even better is that ALL of those services work
with my Roku set top box and my smartphone .. so I can watch on my TV or anywhere I go
Hope that helps! I would stay away from the free sites ( aside from Hulu ) ...
edit on 10/24/2014 by miniatus because: (no reason
given)
edit on 10/24/2014 by miniatus because: (no reason given)
edit on 10/24/2014 by miniatus because: (no reason
given)
edit on 10/24/2014 by miniatus because: (no reason given)