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.

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.

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?

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 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 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 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

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.

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?

The reason they're constantly being taken down and are often unusable to watch anything on is to make you give up, and just buy the streaming service

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?

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.

I don’t feel like paying for B1G+

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.

Why are they so fucking sloooow, I get buffering like 10 times a movie but never on any other kind of video streaming. Nothing has been this successful in making me want to pay for content

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 pay for Netflix and Disney Plus (previously HBO) and have been doing it for many years. I was under the impression streaming sites were shit quality with tons of ads. It was that way when I last checked like 10 years ago. But holy shit the quality is high and I cannot differentiate between these and paid services! To think I've been needlessly paying for these services for years. My question is (in the case of say Faragski and fmovie) Are the servers stable? Are there ads embedded in the movies and shows? What's the catch?