Free Satellite TV on PC?
"I saw a website advertising software that's supposed to give you free satelite TV on your PC. The program costs $40, but they claim it lets you watch hundreds of live worldwide channels free of charge. Sounds too good to be true... is this a scam?" |
Can I Really Get Free Satellite TV on my PC?
Everything I've read about this type of thing tells me it's a scam, or at least a waste of money. The software you get for your forty bucks is nothing more than a menu of free online television broadcasts. Most of the stations listed are foreign, and the list contains many entries that are obsolete or do not work.
If you're considering buying a software package named "PC Satellite TV", "Satellite TV Elite", "Satellite TV on PC", "Satellite TV for PC Elite Edition", "TV on PC Elite", "Digital TV 4 PC" or anything similar... they are ALL THE SAME type of scamware. You will pay $40 and in return you'll get a crappy software program that does NOT deliver what it promises. You WILL NOT get any premium or pay-per-view channels for free. The only thing these packages offer is links to online video sites that you could find for free with a quick search on Google or Yahoo.
Sorry, but there's no way to turn your PC into a satellite dish and get free HBO or MTV. But there is some good news... You CAN get lots of free satellite television programming on your TV, if you have a satellite dish and a "free-to-air" satellite receiver box. My companion article Free Satellite TV explains it all in detail.
You can also use your internet-connected computer to tune into a huge number of free television broadcasts. You can watch SOME programs from the BBC News, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, ESPN, and other broadcasts from around the world. I suggest that you first go to the official website of the TV station or broadcast that you'd like to watch and look for a link to view live or recent broadcasts.
Here are some links to popular TV network websites:
If you don't see what you want there, try one of these sites that aggregate content from various video and TV sites across the Internet:
Exposing the "free satellite tv on pc" scam has not made me popular with some people. Many times I've received emails from people saying that I'm a liar, that I must be "really old fashioned" or "a Direct TV executive." Others post comments here with a glowing review of some Satellite TV software and a link to buy. But EVERY TIME, it's the exact same scamware, being sold through an affiliate link. My advice here is only meant to protect people who might otherwise be tempted to waste their money and fall for this scam.
As I said before, these programs will NOT give you access to anything that's not already freely available on the Web. What this software provides (when it actually works) is little more than a searchable list of websites that offer streaming video. You can find the same information yourself with a search engine query. It's ONLY dishonest people, who stand to profit from ignorance, that continue to push this scam. Don't fall for it.
Oh, and one last point... every few months someone posts a comment and asks "Why do you sometimes have ads on this page for the same type of products that you warn against?" That's a fair question, and I've answered it several times in the comments. But since those replies can get buried after a while, I'm going to address the issue here. The Google ads are not under my control, and are automatically selected for relevance to the content of the page. And in an ironic way, even those questionable ads are. My hope is that people will actually *READ* the article and understand why they should NOT believe the hype. Click if you want, just be forewarned.
Got comments or questions about free online TV? Post your thoughts below...
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Posted by Bob Rankin on 29 Mar 2010
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Most recent comments on "Free Satellite TV on PC?"
(See all 424 comments for this article.)Posted by:
robert wright
28 Jul 2011
thank you to all the reviewers,as i am brand new to the internet , i need all the help i can get from the more experienced of you .I am just getting used to checking everything you people say ' prior to pressing any buttons,just in case.
Posted by:
Shaey
14 Oct 2011
Scam. The other thing to think about is that if you were downloading movies and tv shows to your computer, it would very quickly use up all your download GB. I would not trust any unknown software to put onto my computer. If it sounds too good to be true, it generally is.
Posted by:
REACTOR
27 Oct 2011
...didnt do my home work. Purchased satelite pc pro. Two emails and one week later still no word back from pc pro on sixty day money back garruntee.
Posted by:
Walter Hansen
31 Oct 2011
You might give XBMC a try. Started life as X Box Media Center, but now it's just a media interface that you can run on practically anything. Get the Free Cable add on. CBS is still a bit of a pain but not as much as it always is on the web. Their website always freezes on me after watching a couple shows.
I forget about it and watch Hulu and Netflix for a while, then come back and there's a bunch of shows on CBS to watch :-). Catch up on NCIS.
Posted by:
Maciej
04 Nov 2011
How long will this scam last? The creator has been cheating people since yers. When I write in Google "mobiletvelite scam", there are a few pages with links to sites, which in fact are advertisements of this fake program. Too bad, I bought it first, and only now I am reading what this revolutionary "miracle" is. Argh!
Posted by:
cheap dreambox
18 Nov 2011
There is no way you can turn your PC into a satellite TV.
The latest and a lot well-liked in the latest tendencies may be the >cheap dreambox, that has better requirements regarding HD for example MPEG4/H.264.
Posted by:
harry
21 Nov 2011
The site adthe.net is this a valid site?? an can you watch tv programs from it like tnt an usa???
EDITOR'S NOTE: Apparently not. When I visit the site, it says: "This domain has been seized by ICE- Homeland Security Investigations..."
Posted by:
John W. Abert
10 Dec 2011
I have to agree with you, Bob. All those networks are out there for free, just for searching. I have over 50 watchable network icons in a folder on my desktop, and we use nothing but the computer to watch enough free programs, we don't need to waste money on paid services. Two good ones that you didn't mention are SlashControl.com for TV and Movies, and Crackle.com for all movies.
Posted by:
Jayson
28 Dec 2011
Also fastpasstv.ms for movies and tv
Posted by:
Adrian
30 Dec 2011
In the UK we have BBC iPlayer for PC, this is also built in as an app to my LED tv. This is the future of tv streaming, straight onto the hardware player tv is designed to be shown on. Picture takes my breath away. Yes, you need a fast-ish internet connection, and more services will be added over time, I hope. Shame that scamware like this will only taint genuine efforts to get this technology working. I only wish ITV would get their act together to do the same for the main commercial channels.