10 Ways to Watch TV Shows Online Free in 2024 (2024)

Looking for free movies instead of television shows? We also keep an updated list of free movie streaming sites!

Popcornflix: Simple, Easy Access to TV Classics

While Popcornflix is mainly known for its great range of full-length movies, documentaries, foreign films, and original web series, it's also a great place to check out for unique TV shows that are hard to find anywhere else, including cable TV. If you're a millennial looking for some serious childhood nostalgia, you'll want to check out Popcornflix's 90's TV offering featuring classics such as The Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Adventures of Super Mario 3 Bros., and more.

Its TV show offering isn't exactly huge, but it might be worth checking out if you're looking for something different. Preroll ads will also play when you start watching, but you can start watching anything without having to sign up for a free account if you're just looking to try it out quick.

Tubi: 100% Legal and Unlimited TV Show Streaming

Tubi is another alternativethat operates legally through license agreements. And just like Crackle, it also includes movies.

Tubi is totally free with a user account, which you can use to set up your watch queue or pick up where you left off from watching something previously. The platform tracks your viewing history so that it can learn about your preferences to make better suggestions for you.

Browse through all your standard categories such as Action, Drama, Comedy, and others or take a look at some of the interesting categories like Cult Classics andHighly Rated on Rotten Tomatoes. With over50,000 shows and movies available and more being added all the time, Tubi TV is quickly growing to become a TV favorite for internet users everywhere.

Crackle: Watch Hit TV Shows and Crackle Originals

WithCrackle, you can watch full episodes of your favorite TV shows (in addition to movies) and create personal watch lists so you can keep track of everything you're watching.

Since it's a totally free servicewith accessibility across multiple major platforms(including mobile with the free Crackle app), there are some commercials rolled into the programming. Regardless, Crackle is a great alternative that you can enjoy viewing on your computer or with one of its apps on your mobile device.

All you need to do is create a free account to start watching. Select the TV tab in the top menu or search for a show title, then choose the episode you want and enjoy.

You can also use filter options to browse through shows based on genre, alphabetical order, recently added, full episodes, clips, trailers and what's coming soon.

Pluto TV: Watch Some of Your Favorite TV Channels

With the live-streaming Pluto TV platform, you can channel surf over 100 free channels in genres such as news, entertainment, sports, comedy, and more.

Some of the content is live and some of it isn't. It's a bit like RabbitTV Plus, except you don't have to pay an annual fee to watch.

It's similar to traditional cable; you can check out what's currently on without a goal in mind for what to watch. Although you won't be able to catch hit network shows, you'll be able to tune into many major networks' news broadcasts and find familiar episodes of other relatively popular shows.

Yidio: A Simple Site That Searches the Web for Shows on Your Behalf

Similar to ShareTV, Yidio is a TV show source aggregator that points you in the direction of other third-party hosts where you should be able to watch a particular episode.

You can use the right sidebar to browse by genre and the menu at the top to filter available shows by what's available on several premium streaming services. Of course, if you're looking for something to watch for free, you'll want to select the Free filter.

When you select a show, you'll be shown a summary based on IMDb info along with several thumbnails of episodes that are available. Select any thumbnail to be taken to the specific episode listing.

The downside to using Yidio is that its free listings aren't the most accurate or update to date, and you may come across a show that only has short clips rather than full episodes available to watch for free despite its listing in the Free category. There are lots of ads to Amazon, Google Play and iTunes in the way, but if the episode is indeed free, links to free sources (such as YouTube) will be available at the very bottom for you to click on.

Vudu: Watch a Range of Popular Network Shows

Vudu is Walmart's pay-per-use TV show and movie streaming service, with a number of shows and movies available to watch for free. The free ones have ads, but for a platform that offers high-quality, relatively popular shows from networks like CBS, Fox, HBO and more, those ads are definitely tolerable.

You can filter TV shows by genre or select the checkbox for Free TV only, which filters out all the paid content so all you see is what's available to watch for free. As a nice bonus, you can also browse by Most Watched, Release Date and Recently Added to find hidden gems you might not be able to find otherwise.

Shout Factory TV: Cult Classics for Retro Entertainment Lovers

Shout Factory TV delivers over 2,000 hours of cult and classic TV shows that have helped shape today's pop culture. This is a site where you'll be able to find some of the most well-known shows and flicks that many other sites simply don't have, making it a worthwhile site to add to your bookmarks.

Everything can be watched for free with ads, or you can opt to get an ad-free subscription. As a digital channel, Shout Factory TV is also available on a variety of popular platforms including Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TVs, Amazon Prime, Twitch and more.

The major downside to using this site on the web is that there doesn't appear to be a user account creation feature. So if you want to sign into an account to save videos, get new suggestions and pick up where you left off on what you were watching, you're out of luck.

Internet Archive: The Internet's Official Library of Content

The Internet Archive isn't an official streaming service, but it's one of the best places to look for public access of digital content. You can access old websites, software, games, music, video content and a massive library of public domain books.

In its Television section, you can browse through TV recordings that include shows, commercials and even government proceedings. Many of these pieces of content have hundreds of thousands of views.

Content is organized into collections based on type. You can also use the filters on the left side to find shows by year, topic, collection, creator and language.

YouTube: Where Some of the Best Shows Might Be Hiding

Lots of people don’t realize that YouTube is actually a great place to look for television shows. While you won't exactly get access to the most current or popular shows (unless you pay), nor a guaranteed high-quality viewing experience, you might still be pleasantly surprised by what's available on the web’s largest video sharing network.

Just search for a show title and see what comes up. For example, if you search Boy Meets World—an old ABC family sitcom from the 90s—several uploaded episodes from virtually every season will come up. On the other hand, if you search for Grey's Anatomy—a more current and popular television drama—you'll notice results will come up where you'll have to pay a fee to stream it legally on YouTube.

Some people get away with uploading popular TV show episodes for a certain time before they're eventually reported or caught by YouTube. Depending on the timing and the show you're looking for, you might be able to find something that actually shouldn't be there due to copyright restrictions.

TVPlayer: Catch Up on the Latest British Shows (UK Only)

If you are in the UK or love UK programming, then you'll want to know about TVPlayer. This free TV streaming service offers 95 channels for free on both desktop and mobile devices, including shows that are currently airing live.

Free channels include popular ones like BBC 1, Discovery, ITV, Dave, Five, History, Lifetimeand many more. All you have to do to sign up is create an account with your email address, verify your account creation and start watching!

Obviously, the big downside with this one is that it's restricted to users in the UK. If you're located somewhere else, like in the US, you can still create an account and sign in, but if you try to watch something, TVPlayer will first check to make sure you're in the UK and will block access if you're not.

Given that so many people have discovered the many advantages of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), it's possible that you could get around TVPlayer's geographical restrictions if you tried. Having said that, more streaming servicesare seriously cracking down on the VPN trend (like Netflix for example, so don't be surprised if TVPlayer doesn't work with your VPN either!

You might be required to provide your television provider information to watch certain streaming content on network platforms.

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