Subscribe to the newsletter to receive the latest content.
Don't get mad because you've missed your favorite TV show or blockbuster movie. Instead, sit back, relax, and watch it online for free. Being a cheapskate, as much as possible, I avoid spending a single cent on films. For that reason, I scoured the web for hours and found quite a bunch of sites that offer free but high-quality movie and TV streaming. Some are ad-supported, but they are non-intrusive and laid out in good taste. Read the list below and enjoy!
These sites claim to be 100% legal and safe to use. You won't find Hollywood-caliber movies here, but they have an ample selection of classic, unique, and exotic films you won't find anywhere else. In fact, you may stumble on a title you have never heard of and, after watching it, wonder why it is not shown in theaters.
Pluto.TV is a mishmash of more than a hundred free channels, currently not available in the Philippines. If you want a bigger library, visit TubiTV and Plex.TV. On top of that, they have indies, documentaries, and some entries from the Cannes Film Festival. Meanwhile, TopDocumentaryFilms offerings focus on indies and documentaries. They, too, have a long list to browse through. Like Asian movies? Viki is for you. Classic lover? Go to ClassicFreeMovies, haha. FaweSome.TV, and Fandor has some free movie collections too. Archive.Org is not limited to just web content but also movies. OpenCulture also have lot of free movies.
For animes, try BiliBili.TV. Here's some war movies: The Longest Day, Windtalkers, Letters From Iwo Jima, and Isoroku Yamamoto, the Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet.
FlixBaba have popups. Check out TorrentGalaxy, can also download via torrent. At LookMovie you can watch an ad supported The Accountant movie. Underworld and Underworld Evolution is available at Daily Motion. TokyVideo has free videos, like The Shawshank Redemption. Y Tu Mama Tambien.
My favorite movies: The Big Short, Wolf of Wall Street, 99 Homes, Too Big to Fail, Trading Places, Boiler Room, The Laundromat, Argo, Meet Joe Black, A Walk To Remember. 1989 - The Fall of the Soviet Union an interesting documentary involving the former Hungarian Prime Minister, Miklos Nemeth, who may have played a pivotal role. If you search YouTube deep enough you can watch movies for free like Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Flower, The 12th Man, The Courier, The Fortress, and so much more.
Here's a list of website offering free movies.
PBS has some free shows on their website like NewsHour and Nature.
For sports buffs, go to ESPN.
When it comes to analysis of various issues hounding the Philippines I'm subscribed to the following YouTube channels: Christian Esguerra, Dean Mel Sta Maria, Insiders Podcast, Bilyonaryo News Channel, PRTV Prime Media, Wala Kayo Sa Lolo Ko, PressOnePH, Just The Truth Podcast, Richard Heydarian VLOGS, Chris Tan, Cielo Magno, Batas with Atty. Claire Castro, The Pod Network Entertainment, KC After Hours, Mike Abe Opinions, Vlogcaster Armand Dean(VAD) and Enzo Recto. Read The Political Heckler. Get to know about Ronald Llamas at JustTheTruth podcast hosted by Rear Admiral Jay Tarriela of the Philippine Coast Guard. They are factual sources of information.
Here are YouTube channels that livestream news around the clock, completely free.
Enhancer for YouTube is the ultimate FireFox extension to supercharge viewing experience with a host of highly customizable features like setting the default playback quality, disable autoplay, Cinema Mode, Wide and Mini Players, hide chats and membership videos, and so much more.
PeerTube is a free, open-source, and decentralized video hosting platform. It operates via a federation of independently managed servers(instances), allowing users to create their own platforms or join existing ones, thus avoiding reliance on a single central authority, advertising, or tracking. Consider it the Mastodon of video hosting.
You'll need media players to watch movies or listen to music, I personally use VLC, SMPlayer, Clapper, Celluloid, Kodi and PotPlayer. VLC can do video conversion, device streaming, online streaming, recording screen, streams and local media while they play, and watermarking, and even play free radio streaming services, no need for a separate apps. It has built-in effects panel and can be remotely controlled. If using Arch-based Linux distro, specifically CachyOS and VLC can't play certain media, displaying "Codec not supported." error, issue the command: sudo pacman -S vlc-plugins-all.
Plyr is a JavaScript based video player, can play YouTube, Vimeo, and native videos, also have a beautiful UI. VideoJS and PlayerJS are options. VideoJS YouTube playback technology.
Create interactive HTML5 videos using H5P. Here is a tutorial creating the same but with Vanilla JS. Another one from SitePoint using the JS's HTMLMediaElement. CacophonyJS is an interactive video player.
There are a bunch of desktop video converters out there, but I’m sure few could match what Adapter can offer. It is not an ordinary video converter. You don’t just convert from one video format to another, but from video to audio and even image file types. Yes, you read that right. You can extract songs and images with it. Adapter is 100% freeware, it has no ads and doesn’t add watermarks. You can use it with no limits or restrictions whatsoever.
QWinFF and ShutterCoder are GUI for FFmpeg, a command-line media converter. It can read audio and video files in various formats and convert them into other formats. Any Video Converter Free has batch processing and can directly extract and convert audio from any given video. The program can even download and convert YouTube and Google videos. PasteDownload save videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Loom, Bilibili and much more. Free HD Video Converter Factory can also download videos, but it is faster than all the others. Plus, it allows you to cut, crop, and add impressive special effects.
HandBrake has one of the most expansive software packages for ripping and converting video files. It is also multi-platform with Windows, Mac, and Linux versions.
Vert is special. It is online but the image, audio, and document processing is done on the user's device, while videos are converted on their servers. There's no file size limit, no annoying ads, and completely free and open-source.
Videezy offers free stock videos.
Animoto and BiteAble are free online video makers. The free account comes with all the features and unlimited videos but with branding. Typito limits you to 4 watermarked videos per month, while HeadLiner is up to 5. Canva and Adobe Spark are free, but with limited features and with watermarks.
VideoPad, OpenShot, KDenLive, ShotCut, Filmora and Microsoft’s Movie Maker are free desktop video editors. ShotCut can also be used as media converter. Google Web Designer can also edit videos aside from editing images and HTML5-based designed. Blender is a 3D creator but can also do video editing. OBS Studio is a free and open source software for video recording and live streaming, available on Windows, Mac or Linux. Kooha is a basic and user friendly screen recorder, on Linux only.
Glaxnimate is a fast, simple and open-source desktop vector graphics, animation and motion design application.
ComfyUI is an AI creation engine for visual professionals who demand control over every model, every parameter, and every output. Its powerful and modular node graph interface empowers creatives to generate images, videos, 3D models, audio, and more. Free forever if run on user hardware. It is available on Windows, Linux, and macOS, locally with our desktop application.
PikiMov is a free browser-based(Chrome or Edge) motion design and video editor. No paywall, and sign-up is not required. Editing is done locally, files are not uploaded on the server. Supports up to 4K resolution, and it's not bloated with AI stuff. Combines 3 editors: a classic one, a 2D and 3D motion design editors. Support popular features from After Effects and CapCut.
InstaGram's Edits is for mobile.
Convert videos to GIF using Zamzar and Convertio. VistaCreate has a converter optimized for the background option.
VideoSmaller is a very effective online video compressor, but limited to just 500 MB file size. Mux is an API-based video renderer.
To record screen on PC, laptop, tablet or mobile phone, use Loom. Kamoso is a Linux app to take videos and pictures using the desktop camera.
---
Everybody loves music, and most hum personal lyrics in their head. Wouldn't it be awesome if we had tools that enabled us to make our own melody into a real song? Well, stop dreaming. There are free online services that help you create and publish your own.
SoundCloud is a popular social audio platform. It is a good place to discover music and up-and-coming artists. You can record, upload, and share your music for free.
Want to hear an angel sing? Listen to Grissini Project's Elfen Lied cover. Listen to Marry Me by Train.
To jump start your musical career, use BandLab. It is a free cloud-based music studio that allows you to create music anywhere, anytime with anyone, regardless of whether you're a pro or a noob dreaming of being a pro someday. Use it to refine your melody, then collaborate with others to further improve it.
No musical instruments of your own? No problem, do it virtually with AudioTool. It is a complete music production studio, so you can create music and collaborate purely online. LMMS is a desktop music composer.
Edit and record your audio with Audacity, and Tenacity.
Sonauto is a free AI music generator but requires a sign up. Suno is paid but the free account avails of a generous 10 songs a day. The songs however, are not for commercial use. AI Music Gen is limited to 4 songs per day.
MusicGen is a free and open-source single language model AI developed by Meta that generates high-quality 10–30 second music clips based on text descriptions or audio prompts. Checkout demos here. Local installation requires a computer with a good GPU(NVIDIA). Instructions here.
Dreaming of becoming a pianist? I have good news. There are websites that allow anyone to learn and play the piano online for free. HoffmanAcademy offers free piano lessons. It is named after its founder, Joseph Hoffman, who is a teacher, composer, and conductor. He came up with his own way of training, called the "Hoffman Method". Based on this, he created a series of video piano lessons that he is now sharing on his website.
The lessons are conveniently classified into units up to 8. I can say the lessons are comprehensive yet explained in a very easy way, I'm sure even kids will love them. However, if you want to learn the complete materials, you'll have to purchase them.
Flowkey provides 8 song tutorials and selected piano lessons completely free. What makes the service unique is the interactive feedback that detects whether you're in step with the notes or not. Now that's a very useful feature that helps you learn faster.
Have trouble sleeping? Trying to focus on studying? Did you know that rain can help you in both situations? OK, let's get rid of the actual raindrops. The sound of rain alone does the trick, haha. But then again, it depends on how one reacts to it. Some get lulled to sleep, some gain concentration.
Rainy Mood boasts of being “the internet's most popular rain experience”. According to them, “the sound of rain helps millions of people sleep, study, and relax." Of the same mold is Raining.FM, the rain is accompanied by thunder. It has dynamic image backgrounds too.
Another site to check out is Noisli. It is a background noise and background color generator. You can play different noises together to form your own unique sounds. Find out how the sounds of flowing water, bird chirps, and waves make you feel. A Soft Murmur is another similar site.
But why limit yourself to what you hear?
Endel is a good source of relaxing sounds. They have a scientific approach in generating personalized sound environments to help you focus, relax, and sleep. It is best enjoyed on mobile apps. MyNoise is also an alternative.
Taking it to another level is Lounge V, which provides relaxing sounds with videos of landscapes in stunning full HD detail.
Here's a list of free background noise generators for working, gaming, and studying.
Looking for alert, notification and sound effects for your project? SoundBible have a lot of free and Public Domain(CC0) collection. I like Banana Slap, Neck Snap, Punch or Whack, Slap and Pew Pew. MixKit, StreamLabs, Videvo and FreeSound are good alternative sources. Bfxr is a desktop application to generate sound effects for computer games.
PodCastfy is an open-source Python package that transforms multi-modal content (text, images) into engaging, multi-lingual audio conversations using GenAI. Input content includes websites, PDFs, images, YouTube videos, as well as user provided topics.
As a home-based web developer, it is common to get a project that will test not just my skills but also my will to solve problems. Recently, I was assigned to rip off a specific site's audio player built with HTML & CSS. But the code that runs the player is nowhere to be found. That really complicates what is otherwise just a few minutes' worth of tasks.
As always Google saves the day and I stumbled upon SoundManager 2. It is a cross-platform JavaScript API that plays audio. In layman's terms, it makes a dumb audio player UI smart. Since I already have the interface, all I need to do is integrate SoundManager 2 into it. Simple right? Yeah, see SitePoint's example.
To listen to any radio broadcast from anywhere in the planet, visit Radio Garden.
Here's how to pair and connect a Sony wireless WF-SP700N earphone with an Android smartphone.
Affiliate Disclosure: Post may contain links to affiliate websites, and we may receive a commission for any purchases or actions made by you on the websites using such links. Thank You.