What's the deal with watch4freemovies.com?
December 29, 2022 12:36 PM Subscribe
So a friend mentioned this in passing that this site has free streaming movies. It seems of course too good to be true. How do they make their money? Is it legal? Is it a security risk?
Best answer: 1. They are not paying for any of the content, it's all stolen.
2. The site is chock full of extremely scammy ads. I turned off uBlock and ABP for like 2 seconds on the site and it tried to download an extension to my browser.
There's nothing inherently "wrong" with this for you as a consumer as long as you're data/internet savvy. Run script and ad blockers and don't click anything weird. I guess you also need to have a set of morals that would allow you to download a car. I do. Shoot me.
I used to use sites like this all the time to watch stuff. They've been around since the very beginning of streaming technology. They get shut down all the time. I spent half my college job (overnight security, nothing else to do) hunting mirrors to watch stuff on projectfreetv. It's all the same concept still today, just with marginally better software. (And given the proliferation of streaming services, there are probably fewer cam and screener rips these days than there used to be.)
Long story short, no it's not legal (for them to run) and they make their money through shitty ads that can indeed be a security risk to you (if you are not very careful).
posted by phunniemee at 1:12 PM on December 29, 2022 [20 favorites]
2. The site is chock full of extremely scammy ads. I turned off uBlock and ABP for like 2 seconds on the site and it tried to download an extension to my browser.
There's nothing inherently "wrong" with this for you as a consumer as long as you're data/internet savvy. Run script and ad blockers and don't click anything weird. I guess you also need to have a set of morals that would allow you to download a car. I do. Shoot me.
I used to use sites like this all the time to watch stuff. They've been around since the very beginning of streaming technology. They get shut down all the time. I spent half my college job (overnight security, nothing else to do) hunting mirrors to watch stuff on projectfreetv. It's all the same concept still today, just with marginally better software. (And given the proliferation of streaming services, there are probably fewer cam and screener rips these days than there used to be.)
Long story short, no it's not legal (for them to run) and they make their money through shitty ads that can indeed be a security risk to you (if you are not very careful).
posted by phunniemee at 1:12 PM on December 29, 2022 [20 favorites]
Question is answered, but just to add one more layer of depth - the architecture of these sites is to play videos that are hosted on other websites - typically some less-than-attentive cloud provider in a European country without much care for copyright.
So this site, for example, claims it's just aggregating links to content ala Google and supports itself with ads. Since they don't actually host anything themselves, they claim to be legal. This is the same way torrent websites and similar things operate.
This makes it harder for content owners to take sites like this down, because they need to play whack-a-mole with the actual sources of the uploaded content, not just the sites that make it easy for people to play them.
posted by matrixclown at 2:44 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
So this site, for example, claims it's just aggregating links to content ala Google and supports itself with ads. Since they don't actually host anything themselves, they claim to be legal. This is the same way torrent websites and similar things operate.
This makes it harder for content owners to take sites like this down, because they need to play whack-a-mole with the actual sources of the uploaded content, not just the sites that make it easy for people to play them.
posted by matrixclown at 2:44 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
As a heads up, the website justwatch.com is legit and will tell you where things are legally streaming, whether for pay or not. They do link to sites that are free but have ads, so you might be surprised at the things that you can watch for a free as long as you sit through a few ads.
posted by bluedaisy at 4:27 PM on December 29, 2022 [17 favorites]
posted by bluedaisy at 4:27 PM on December 29, 2022 [17 favorites]
tubi and youtube legitimately have free streaming stuff with ads, if that helps
posted by bearette at 5:26 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by bearette at 5:26 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Your local library might partner with Kanopy.
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:44 PM on December 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:44 PM on December 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
tubi and youtube legitimately have free streaming stuff with ads, if that helps
and yt-dlp will easily download content ad-free from both, for those of us who prefer our video unadulterated by commercials and/or network freezes.
posted by flabdablet at 11:25 PM on December 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
and yt-dlp will easily download content ad-free from both, for those of us who prefer our video unadulterated by commercials and/or network freezes.
posted by flabdablet at 11:25 PM on December 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
A subtle detail for the actual servers that host the content is that they are in countries that flout copyright rules which are actively trying to undermine the western media system and I would not be surprised if they got some indirect state support.
posted by Lucubrator at 9:37 AM on December 30, 2022
posted by Lucubrator at 9:37 AM on December 30, 2022
I just picked up a favorite on the comment I made in this thread and it reminded me--I've watched a considerable amount of content on this site since you asked this question! Mostly old episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark, but a few movies, too. Thanks, I guess. I'm running a script blocker and an ad blocker. Not a single bad thing has happened to me and the copyright po po have yet to knock on my door.
posted by phunniemee at 3:04 PM on January 11, 2023
posted by phunniemee at 3:04 PM on January 11, 2023
This thread is closed to new comments.
They surround pirated content with sketchy ads.
> Is it legal?
No.
> Is it a security risk?
Yes.
posted by steveminutillo at 1:08 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]