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If you’ve been tempted to purchase from one of those websites that promise you thousands of satellite TV channels on you PC for a one time fee, you better read on.
While investigating registry cleaner scams, I came across a scam that tries to sell a free product that doesn’t belong to them.
Sellers of these programs emphasize 3000+ or 5000+ channels for a small one-time fee. This may sound great, but on the internet, that’s a small number, and these channels are free. A scam where a free product is sold for money is quite common on the web, and especially happens a lot with P2P file sharing programs.
Not surprisingly, just like the registry cleaner rip-offs, these scams spread like a wild fire with the help of affiliate marketing. Affiliates who know little about video streaming programs try to get a piece of the pie by promoting it on forums and ads.
Most seem to have a price tag around $40-50. These so-called, satellite TVs actually aren’t. Many streaming videos actually come from users broadcasting from their PCs, not satellites. They use P2P technology. Some may be infringing copy rights, but most channels are already available for free on the web provided by the networks themselves.
Let’s take a look at one of these scam websites.
(See the SCAM LIST for more.)
The site tells you that you’ll get over 3000 satellite TV channels on your PC, and provides a sample stream from “one of the channels available”.
You definitely get thousands of channels. But, like I mentioned, these aren’t satellite channels and the sample stream isn’t “one of the channels available”. It’s just a clip of Transformers, not a sample live feed. Worst of all, they are selling TVUPlayer, a free player you can download for free.
So, they lie about ‘satellite channels,’ give you a false sample feed, and try to scam you into paying for a free product made by someone else (sometimes virus included or just a plain crappy software).
#1 recommendation: Don’t pay for these, and if you have, ask for a refund.
Recommendations – I recommend you try out the programs and websites below. You can now read this updated article: Free Places to Watch TV Online for the full list of recommendations including VOD.
The following are players (applications) that you install on your computer.
- TVUPlayer: This is one of the players that these scam sites are selling. I used this player some time ago, and haven’t used in a while. I recently checked out the site (thanks to the scam above), and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had done a lot of work to make their site look nice and had improved their software. It uses P2P technology, which means the more people watch, smoother the quality.
- SOP Cast: Similar to TVUPlayer. Some broadcasters prefer TVUPlayer and some prefer to stream via SOP Cast. It’s good to have both if you want more channels.
- There are lots of video streaming programs out there. Here are a few more suggestions: , ,
I don’t know how to really navigate these sites as they’re all in Chinese. :) I managed to find English pages for PP Stream and PP Live, though.
Below are websites that don’t require any installation.
- Justin TV: You can broadcast yourself or watch what others are broadcasting. Lots of good selection. Check it out .
- wwiTV: Collection of live broadcasts from around the world. These are direct streams from the network stations all categorized into countries for easy navigation.
Well, those are some of the methods to watch live TV online. If you are looking for VOD (Video On Demand), then there are too many good sites to cover. If you want to check out some of them, ask in the comment section, I will try to share some.
Thanks for reading, and always look for free (legal^^) ways to get what you want before you reach for your wallet, and don’t fall for these scams.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year 2011!
How I Watch Sports Online
9 Comments
Hi I was just about to pay $49.00 to satellite direct so i could get programmes from all over the world and watch it on my tv, Can you help me with this, Ialready have TIVO and a dongle (i think its called, i have wifi
Thanks again
Carol
I wrote an article on these scams and you want to pay for one of these? Read the article.
As soon as I downloaded TV Guide online I realized it was a scam. My bank sent me a notice of withdrawel with a phone number attached. I tried to call the number and the number was disconnected! How can I get my money back?
What did you pay with? If credit card, you may be able to do a charge-back. Call your bank. Otherwise, the money’s gone.
Hi, my dad apparently gets these on his mac, on firefox, on the GOOGLE FRONT PAGE. This sounds like a virus. Just wanted to add some meta for google to pick up.
Will tell him to get new antivirus software and update firefox.
Hi,
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[responded]
Regards,
David
Sopcast is a geat bit of software but dont you find the streams a little unstable sometime?
I found a couple of other p2p programs that are free and worth a look see :-)
Coolstreaming
EDITED:
PPLive
EDITED:
These are particularly good for live sports like football, soccer, baseball, basketball etc…
Like all P2P streaming, if there are lots of viewers, the stream quality will be good. Otherwise, it might be a little choppy. Mostly, if the stream strength is there, Sopcast has no problems.
Coolstreaming is basically jumbled up package that includes links to Justin.tv and TVUPlayer streams, and I hate toolbars.
PPLive was already recommended in the post. You can get it from here:
And your website is on the border-line of making my scam website list.
is another good one. Comparable to JustinTV