'DIY Netflix' streaming service offers completely free watching with thousands of titles
With the latest interface changes over at Netflix making a lot of subscribers very angry and yet again threatening to cancel their subscriptions it might be time to look elsewhere.
Netflix is rolling out a new interface which they say will improve the recommendations it plops in front of you, but among those who've tried it the new style has been met with a significant wave of criticism.
One of the main complaints is that the tiles showing you all the various titles to stream are now much larger, meaning they take up more of the screen and you can't see as many.
Given the regular rounds of grumbling over Netflix and the changes it keeps making, you might want to try a streaming platform which lets you watch things for free and even helps you build your own library of content.
Advert
It's called Plex.
What is Plex?
It started out in the late noughties as a media centre for people to more easily watch things on their devices.
You could (and still can) upload your own video and music files there and then use Plex to more easily access all of it in the same place, which is handy if you're the sort of person who would happily watch a movie but couldn't be bothered to fire up the DVD player.
However, it has added the ability to stream other things so you can watch a bunch of stuff on Plex without paying anything, though you are going to get adverts.
Basically, you can build your own streaming platform on it by uploading media you already own and watch some other stuff too.
What can I watch on Plex?
Whatever you want to upload to your own library, or Plex Media Server if you want to be technical about it.
If your DVD collection is taking up massive space and you can't be bothered with the rigmarole of manually putting them into a player to watch whatever's on them, set aside some time to get the files onto one of your devices and create a content library, which is why some fans of the place call it a 'DIY Netflix'.
This probably explains why the Plex subreddit is full of people talking about how they need hard drives with several terabytes of storage.
If you don't want to watch your own stuff then you can also stream their own library of content.
Not to look a gift horse in the mouth but much of what's on there is what you'd expect to see from a platform that's free.
However, there are also some really good titles on there as well, as you can watch Mythbusters and Mr Bean on it, and they have loads of live TV channels you can watch through the site.
As with pretty much any streaming platform you just need to keep searching long enough and you'll find something you like.
How do I watch titles?
You create a free account, find something that looks like it's up your street and then start watching.
If you're wanting to watch your own content then you just add it to your own library and Plex will fill out all sorts of metadata for it so it'll look incredibly fancy.
Once you've got your libraries set up then you just hop in and can start watching it like you would any streaming platform.
Topics: TV and Film, Technology, Netflix
Joe Harker