7 Excellent destinations to watch TV Shows for FREE

Over the last several months, in MakeUseOf Directory posts we have mentioned several websites that let anyone freely stream popular Movies, TV shows, Cartoons and other entertainment content. While some of the websites are long gone, some got much more popular and are able to maintain an excellent job at keeping content both up-to-date and free of dead links. Check out some of the better ones below. Listed from top to less preferable ones.

QUICK UPDATE: Unfortunately most of the websites mentioned here are either no longer online or lost the edge. You can check the current best website for watching TV shows on our newly compiled ‘Where To Watch …‘ page.

Top Picks

TV-Links (no longer online) – extremely popular, comprehensive and always up-to-date video directory. Additionally to ‘TV shows’ also features ‘Cartoons’, ‘Anime’, ‘Movies’, ‘Music videos’ and ‘Sport’ categories. Outperforms other similar services in several ways: huge number of shows, lots of good video quality shows, few broken links, full-screen mode and more.

Alluc – Very similar to above mentioned TVLinks. Lists TV shows, cartoons, anime, movies, music videos, sport videos and documentaries.

Sidereel – Wiki-style directory with lots movies and TV shows. In addition to listing links to full-length web videos also lists destinations where you can buy related shows/movies.

Other ‘Live Streaming’ Services

  • TV-Video – TV shows
  • AllOfTV – anime, cartoons, music videos, TV shows.
  • VideoHybrid – movies, TV shows.
  • Peekvid – TV shows, cartoons, anime, movies, music videos and some more

Bonus: Custom Search Engine

MOVIES and TV SHOWS Search (Google Co-op): similar to what was done for ‘Q&A’ and ‘HowTo’ services, this custom google-powered search engine lets you search simultaneously on all ‘free-to-stream’ Movie and TV Shows sources.

Tagged: • •

Aibek Esengulov

The guy behind MakeUseOf.com. Follow him and MakeUseOf on Twitter @MakeUseOf. For more details check out MakeUseOf about page.

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  • http://www.brentevans.blogspot.com Brent

    Thanks for a great post. These sites are pretty good. Tv-Links in particular looks pretty good. Amazing list of shows. Looks like they are using Veoh for the player.

    After checking out the shows though, I wonder if these are really legal? Episodes of Rome for instance are not available (or supposed to be available) online. Since Veoh is a P2P app, it looks like these are pirated episodes. Not sure of this, but it looks suspect to me so I wonder how long these sites will last.

    A post I made earlier this month outlined some good, legal sources of online tv shows. It highlighted some sources that aggregated listings of TV shows online and although certainly not as good since they don’t all play in the same type of player like Veoh – I’m sure they are legal at least.
    How to Find Legal, Full Episode, TV Shows Online

    Check it out if your interested.

    Brent

  • http://makeuseof.com Aibek

    Hi Brent

    You’re right most of the mainstream TV shows on TV links and alike websites are pirated. However despite it, TV links seem to get just better and more popular. Which means users tend to like it more then they dislike it. I guess at the end it all comes down to personal choice.

    Btw, thanks for the ALTERNATIVE link. Now we got something for everyone.

    • Stephen

      Personal choice correct – whether you want to live ethically or not

  • http://www.brentevans.blogspot.com Brent

    Aibek,
    The links you have here are still a very nice resource if you miss a show. There are times when you miss a show and theres no good way to get caught up without going to places like this. I think the TV Networks will have to eventually offer more of this and adapt. Torrents were where most people looked for things like this, but your search engine and the tv-links site are better – no need to download anything.
    Thanks,
    Brent

  • http://makeuseof.com Aibek

    Thanks for the quick reply. In the comment above you have mentioned:

    “…TV Networks will have to eventually offer more of this and adapt”

    I think you’re definitely right here, because what we got at the moment costs TOO MUCH, especially when most of the content easily accessible online for free. Hence, it seems a better model is yet to come.

  • Nado Skinner

    There’s another source you would like to add to this list. Unlike the other ones, the site Venividi (http://venividi.blogsome.com) embeds the video in a nicer and cleaner player. Plus it doesn’t bug users with multiple pop-up, pop-under or ads. I guess the site prefers to lead its users straight to the videos more than trying to lure them to click on ads.

  • http://makeuseof.com Aibek

    @Nado

    true there are no ads what so ever, however VeniVidi provides rather limited amount of links and very inconvenient to navigate. Onh the other hand, most of the services that were mentioned above categorize links in directory-like structure making it easier to find what I need fast.

  • http://nosubscriptionrequired.blogspot.com/ Norman Roberts

    NSR – your ticket to one of the most comprehensive on line collections of free entertainment links available on the web,no registration,no fees, no downloads!!!”your entertainment blog site promoter”
    http://nosubscriptionrequired.blogspot.com/

    • http://www.myeasytv.com Bob

      Not only is that really cluttered and ugly, the amount of images and widgets slow my computer. Plus the design is horrible and there are too many ads. it’s hard to tell what’s a site review and what’s a cruddy ad affiliate link your trying to sell.

      NSR Sucks

      • http://makeuseof.com Aibek

        I second, NSR sucks!

  • http://makeuseof.com Aibek

    @Norman

    Thanks for the nice link, looks little cluttered but good. ;-)

  • http://www.fnuz.com fnuz

    you should check Fnuz The directory of video streaming websites
    http://www.fnuz.com

  • http://makeuseof.com Aibek

    @ fnuz
    thanks, will do.

  • http://www.LotsOfGreatVideos.com Watch Movies Online

    Want to search YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, Revver, ITunes, Mofile, ExpoTV, Myspace & More all at 1 Place. Go to http://www.LotsOfGreatVideos.com where you can catch up on the Simpsons or Family Guy – Read about chemtrails – watch sports news Or watch ANYTHING online for free!

  • Anissa

    Watch free TV online :

    On http://www.tvonline.2ya.com ….. for MTV, MCM, ESPN, Eurosport, CNN, ABC, BBC, NBC, NASA TV, ANIMAL PLANET, NATIONNAL GEOGRAPHIC … by categories.

    On http://englishtv.site.voila.fr/index.html …. for watching free vieo clip like Rihanna, Ciara, Beyonce, Fergie, Cassie, Nelly furtdo, Timbaland, DMX, Akon, The game, Snoop dog, Chamillionnaire, 50cents, Ludacris, Avril lavigne, Pink, Gwen stefani, Green day, Blink 182, U2, Madonna, Evanescence, Tiestö, Cascada, Lasgo …

    It’s free with nothing to download, Just need a media player.

  • http://www.LotsOfGreatVideos.com watch lost online

    I watch LOST online at LotsOfGreatVideos.com

    You can watch your favorite TV Series or latest movies for free!

  • jitendra

    nothing

  • eloise

    yea, great about the ‘legal’ ways, but some of us live outside the US, and network websites don’t let us watch stuff online. so that sucks.

  • Brainiac

    @eloise

    And that’s why we have no choice but to resort to sites like TVlinks-co.uk. Right?

    :-)

  • harry potter

    where cn i watch death note other than youtube veoh and anime org? i can’t find it in the websites above……………

  • http://www.flickpeek.com Andrew

    Hello there,

    I’ve been reading your article and I hope you’ll take a look at our website: http://www.flickpeek.com . We think it’s a great resource for tv shows and movies.

    Thanks!

  • Erodote

    Hi,

    I love watching cable & satellite TV online by internet. A great website where to Watch Free TV is TVonline :

    http://www.tvonline.2ya.com

    Lot of webradio & webTV like MCM, MTV, Eurosport, ESPN, CNN, ABC, SKYNEWS, Discovery channel, Sci-fi channel, NASA TV, Research channel, and more.

  • http://www.rawstylus.wordpress.com chris
    • http://makeuseof.com Aibek

      Thanks for the comments, I will check it out shortly.

  • http://www.urstop.com UrStop

    Thanks, I was looking for this information for a while.

  • http://hulustuff.blogspot.com/ lob

    I’ve put together a blog of stuff on hulu

    http://hulustuff.blogspot.com/

  • Justin

    Television companies – Listen up!

    We are the consumers who buy your products and give you the audience which gets you the advertisers (who pay crazy amounts of money to you) without us you would not have any ground on which to demand so much from the advertisers, no one to sell to – no deal right?

    Anyways I can understand why movies are illegal to ‘flash up’ and share on the internet – but TV shows? Come on buddy you know damn well that you already made the money on an old show that plays over and over with reruns on television.

    What’s that you say? DVD’s? – get real most people do not buy seasons of television shows on DVD and if they do they are usually big big fans who want the real thing with the inserts and everything (keep in mind the show is still on TV reruns anyways)

    Family Guy.. wasn’t it cancelled? Yes, wasn’t it Internet ‘interest’ that brought it back? Yes!

    Remember that MacFarlane :P

    • http://makeuseof.com Aibek

      I am totoally with you on that. TV shows should be free. They should ad some ads there, I don’t thinks anyne would mind.

  • Vic

    quero ver tv

  • http://www.theycool.com jenny

    It’s a free TV portal where you can watch more than 3250 online TV channels.
    http://www.theycool.com

  • http://WWW.JOOST.COM jappi
  • Joe

    I think it bares mentioning that tv-links is back online @ tv-links.cc

  • http://www.tvduck.com Alex

    I found this site where you can Watch free tv shows online,
    as well as movies.

    here is the link:
    http://www.tvduck.com

    amazing site, always updated.

    Have you been quacked yet ?

  • http://thisweekontv.net rob

    The bigger sites tend to get crowed, some smaller tv show sites are a bit better if you ask me. Faster streaming & loading of the videos. I’m currently using a site called http://thisweekontv.net , their videos load withing 5 seconds most of the time.

  • rob

    Another good site is http://tvshowguide.net which always has current & up to date shows.

  • Johnhq
  • bowlpacked

    I really like sidereel.com, they have pretty much every TV show. Also, check out

  • Tara

    Another great site http://WWW.SHOWREWIND.COM :)

  • justin

    another great site that i like is surfthechannel.com

    thanks for the other links too! I was looking for something i couldnt find on surf the channel.

  • http://www.greatonlinetv.com sana

    Watch Free Online TV Channels from all over the world and select it from entertainment music news education cartoon sports movies games information etc
    http://www.greatonlinetv.com
    thanks

  • http://www.oiubire.ro/tv/online.php tv online

    You can add this link : http://www.oiubire.ro/tv/online.php to the list. Is a great place for tv online.

  • JOhn

    http://www.showrewind.com has a HUGH database of links. :)

  • martin

    peekvid has been fined my the MPAA and as a result has had to shut down its operation

  • http://www.blinkbox.com Watch Movies

    You have to add blinkBox to that list! You can watch movies for free and the quality is superb!

  • zuhaa

    Here I found other site just for SCRUBS fan, watch this hot comedy series online for free
    http://hotcomedyseries.com

  • jipidbipity

    all these services are still pitted.
    they show a huge directory but behind the links are dummy pages or dead links.
    If you get a show- its broadcasted from an outpost on Saturns dead moon and takes forever to load.

  • Sudarshan

    Thanks for the Great list,I just want to share a site that I use to see popular tv-shows online…there are no ads in that site and they load really fast.,…Guys better check it out
    http://watch-tv-shows.tv

  • http://www.freetvcity.com saima

    http://www.freetvcity.com provides a free selection of the best quality live online television broadcasted streams over the net for internet users.

  • http://vid23.com/ Meenu grover

    Free High Quality Movies Streaming Live 24/7 with real time all over the world while watching the movies! Come check us out, we are a simple one page website showing the movie screen Vid23.com. You can also use vid23.com to download Megavideo videos.

  • http://vid23.com/ Meenu grover

    Your information is really great. But for this we need to go the place where we can make our videos and people can share that videos. Before submitting to your given website. for this i found best place where we can download any video from Youtube, Megavideo, etc.You can download from vid23.com.

  • http://www.watchrome.com watch rome

    I currently have the only website on the internet that has full working episodes of HBO ROME. all other videos are offline.

    To watch Full Free episodes of Rome online: please visit http://www.watcherome.com

  • http://down-the-pipe.com Aliaksandr Isakau

    If you are using iGoogle as a home page, heres great gadget Watch ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC shows online to help you to access most major channels prime time shows online on their official sites fast and easy.
    Heres what you need to do : On your iGoogle home page click on “Add Stuff” link in upper right corner. It will open gadget central and search for “Watch ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC shows online” to locate that gadget.
    Or if you like an easy way, heres direct link to it http://www.google.com/ig/directory?hl=en&url=hosting.gmodules.com%2Fig%2Fgadgets%2Ffile%2F101463307027941272586%2Fwso_gadget.xml .
    Its hosted on google so dont be afraid to use the link, anyway its totally up to you guys;)
    Enjoy

  • Marc

    I’ve been using First On Mars to watch episodes online.

    They launched in Dec and it was a little shaky. A searchbox was just posted in the newest release making navigation better.

  • http://guitarhero anthony

    hi

  • Frank

    vid23.com is no longer working. It asks you to give them your email (hotmail, yahoo, aol, …) password to “notify” your contacts. When you do that it does not allow you to download the video. Beware!!

    (note: of course I created a fake address at hotmail and added contacts that were also fake addresses that I created for that purpose)

  • http://www.Spreety.com Free TV Online

    Any chance for an update to the above?

  • http://www.onlinetvez.com ringling

    Here’s another website for free tv and free movies, video on demand, live channels, plus 189 public domain classic movies for you viewing pleasure…


    Online TV made EZ…

  • http://www.tv-links.eu TV Links

    You mention in this article that TV Links is no longer online.

    I kindly ask you to take some time to look at http://www.tv-links.eu

    TV Links is a multimedia search engine that scours the Web for high-quality videos, movies, TV shows, and films. TV Links connects to more than 3000 movie and video sites, organizing content into an easy to use multimedia directory.

    Also, join our community on Facebook.

    The TV Links Team
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tv-linkseu/134120042317

  • Nigel Wason

    I must be confused – clicked thru to Where to Watch page – says moved to Downloads (this page – came back here – no can find – where do I go to download the PDF file?

    thanx, Nigel

  • http://www.dwi-tv.com dwi tv

    i love watching tv shows and movies online i don’t even have a tv any more i strongly believe that Streaming is the future

  • http://watchlostonlineepisodes.com Terry

    This is very good site for watching Lost all episodes for free. The players are great with awesome video quality. You should check it out best thing it you do not have to take a survey

  • http://www.ezpctv.com/ jiil

    For sports http://www.ezpctv.com/ nfl, nhl and nba

  • Brian Riley

    http://watchtvweb.trilogiksoft.com
    Excellent site. Simple interface and easy to understand. They seems to add channels every week and all of them are working great!

  • http://www.sixreel.com SixReel

    http://www.sixreel.com

    Contains more then 50 tv shows with all their episodes for free streaming online!