I know there are some problems with torrents, so I don't even try them, but I wonder if I can watch something on websites like 123movies, Rezka, etc., which are just free online streaming services I used to watch all the time in other countries (mainly Eastern Europe). When I try using a VPN with them, the connection is extremely slow, so I would rather not.

Was using Braflix for a while and soap2day before that, 123movies isn't good either. All of the above are riddled with ads and annoying pop ups. Sometimes they don't work at all.

Any recommendations?

Update: Cineby seems to be the best out of all the recommendations for those who also wanted to know.

I'd recommend using a VPN with all of these types of sites just to protect yourself against malicious intent.

I personally use Nord VPN, been great so far.

It seems like a game of cat and mouse at this point. Sites always popping up, sites always shutting down... Is this the permanent dance of the internet?

While I don't do it anymore, I used to pirate movies and TV shows online a lot. I stopped because the experience of pirating cotent became so bad that I couldn't deal with it anymore. (Well, it's also because I got into a position where I could actually pay for the legitimate services but we're ignoring that part for now.)
So many sites that ran so poorly. They took forever to load, most of the links were broken, content was missing, each click on the page created a new pop-up ad, the video wouldn't play until after you'd clicked multiple times which generate more ads, banner ads appeared over the video player and blocked content so you'd click to close them and oops! More ads. Wanna full-screen, change the quality, pause, or resume playing? Ads.
On top of that, they often ended up not having the content you were looking for anyway. Either because of deleted videos and broken links, or the video player/host sites running into errors. If you're watching a series you can bet any amount of money they'll have missing episodes, even if they have an insane amount of video hosting options, they all just happen to be missing the same ones at the same time.
My annoyance with those sites is the main thing that pushed me to finally pay for the legit services. It's like they didn't even want me using their site. They all seemed like they were intentionally designed to be as unbearably frustrating as they could be. Which got me thinking...
What if it's the companies who own the genuine streaming services also creating these illegal sites?

If my experience is any indication, the frustration (and possible likely risk to your computer) is definitely enough to dissuade people from pirating content and push them to pay for the legit services. Plus, by pumping out god knows how many copycat sites with similar names, they flood search results and bury the sites earnestly attempting piracy, making it way harder to find one that will give a half-decent experience. It further pushes the image of piracy being difficult, dangerous, and so unappealing that it isn't even worth the risk anyway.

..I've thought about this way too much.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6591670/2025/09/03/streameast-worlds-largest-illegal-sports-streaming-platform-shut-down-in-sting/?source=user_shared_article

Streameast — the world’s largest illegal sports streaming platform — has been shut down after a year long investigation, according to a leading United States-based anti-piracy organisation.

The network of 80 unauthorised domains generated 1.6billion combined visits over the past year, providing free access to global sports fixtures, including Europe’s top football leagues and competitions, such as the Premier League and Champions League, as well as the NFL, NBA and MLB.

I don’t feel like paying for B1G+

I uses sflix.to and it worked fine for a while but then it kept lagging and giving me message error "this video files cann't be played" so i trier cineby and freek and it didn't work either. And i relly dont know what to do and i'm scared that it's my pc the issue because every episode lagged at the same Time in the episode Hello me please 😭

I don't understand. Why are there several servers per episode? How do they get the media? Who's behind those servers? How can we find EVERYTHING from ANYWHERE in some illegal streaming websites?

I know it's safe to directly download anything living in a first world country, as it's not directly possible to know what I'm downloading from just doing that. I however heard of people getting caught and having to pay fines from simply streaming from illegal websites, without downloading anything. I read it could be because some websites use some kind of P2P thing as a base for the streaming. Are these information correct or is it just safe to stream anything just as it is to go for direct downloads? And yes, when I talk about safety I'm not talking about getting any malware, but safety of getting caught by any copyright agency, ISP, etc...

I live in Germany btw, where copyright is taken very seriously.

Apparently, streaming websites are safe as long as they don't use WEBP2P (Browser Background Based P2P). Therefore, I only hope the streaming websites from the megathread don't use it.

Edit: misspelling + extra information + reliable answer found

I highly highly doubt I’m not the first person to ask this but I want the latest info yk and as someone who isn’t even a legal adult yet and doesn’t have a stream of income, ain’t no way in hell I’m paying for 500 different streaming services. So what would you guys suggest that’s not malicious or straight up a scam to get you to pay a cheaper subscription.

I’m trying to watch the movie Tetris on 123movies but whenever they speak in Russian, the subtitles are just super tiny and I can’t see them. You guys know any good sites?

what I have noticed is, there's absolutely zero quality drop in those streaming platforms and they are directly extracted from popular otts. which completely blacks out your screen when you try to screen record. I don't think so it's capturing. It has do something with data packets parsing as these streaming sites mostly have a short range of streams 30-50 seconds then a new data packet comes up. Do these big ott companies have their endpoints exposed liked that? Or is it an insider job?

websites like streameast are able to stream a fuck ton of sports. Are they really just buying every sports subscription service and using webrtc to stream them on their site?

Hi, I’m moving to Austria from a non European union country (where we don’t get in trouble with the law for streaming pirated movies), so I wanted to ask if I can use sites like 123movies or fmovies in Austria, is it possible to be caught and possibly pay a fine? *I’m not talking about downloading torrents or downloading these movies, simply streaming movies on these sites online. Thank you.

Ive been watching streaming sites like fmovies but I'm worried that I might get a virus. I have Norton as an anti- virus and I'm using microsoft edge. Do you think it is possible to use these sites without getting a virus? Also do you have any suggestions of better websites I can use to stream tv shows and movies?

I’ve tried over a dozen streaming sites. I was in the middle of rewatching Z Nation since Asylum announced its return. All of a sudden, in the middle of season 3, all of the sites I use have suddenly stopped working. I’ve seen other threads here about it but nobody seems to know of any working sites.

If you know of any sites that have been working in the last 15 minutes, please post them.

We should also compile a list of the sites that aren’t working.

So i often use websites like 123movies, solarmovie.pe and others to watch free movies. They all have the same library of movies and share the same basic website design layout. Can someone educate me on how this works? Do they all extract movie data from the same API? Are they all clone websites? What’s the advantage of having 100s of websites that do the same thing? Thanks for helping me understand.