My opinion is...if you really want to get rid of the Dish then go OTA and don't cling to the idea of wanting to watch anything that you used to see on either the Dish or a cable network. If you were unsatisfied with Netflix for whatever reason, you will probably be just as unhappy with the alternatives. Thus far you haven't mentioned what speed your Internet service is. Is it fast enough to stream the video reliably (probably 10 Mb or higher)? If you do plan to stream video to your tv, you should find out if your provider has monthly caps which might incur extra charges if you exceed them.

If you are talking about the Watch Series site that I brought up .. did you follow the rest of my advice?

Use Firefox and an ad blocker.

There is NO so-called utility program to download and there is NO reason to give any information .. to anyone to view the programs.

I have tried using Opera, IE and other browsers with the site and have experienced the pop-up ads and redirects .. same as you and that is why I only use firefox with a pop-up blocker now.

I have used the site for years and have never had a problem.

With the multiple links for each episode .. sometimes one wont work and I'll just find one that does.

Wow, justme4now ! That "Watch Series" site is great ! Loads of fuel for my winter TV viewing pleasure. :-) E.g. Hulu only has 3 seasons of Ironside, but Watch Series has all 6. Nice ! It would be nice if they had Route 66, but I guess you can't have everything. ;-)

Hey justme4now, I too was pleased with your reference to Watch Series. I missed the other thread you referred to, obviously help needed on something I was not able to do so never read the thread.

not2bright, a documentary on "Route 66" is available here and look down the second column for Billy Connelly's Route 66.

Connelly is an irreverent Scottish comedian amongst other things but this seems very interesting. Since starting watching he has only got from Chicago to Arthur, Ill. but my lunch interferes, I will continue watching later as it seems a good way to see some of America LOL.

Thanks, owbist. I'll put it on my "to watch" list. :-)

Thanks justme4now. You asked 'If you are talking about the Watch Series site that I brought up .. did you follow the rest of my advice?'

Yes I was referring to your post. I guess that I didn't understand it clearly. No I didn't use ad blocker and I see that without the ad blocker, I would be getting the utilities I was asking about. I will see if I can get the ad blocker working. I have recently switched to Firefox anyway, so that is a start.

azinoh, yes I was/am concerned about speed. I am running 3 MB DSL. However, when I tried netflix a few times, I was able to acquire the programs reasonably well. I have an aunt who uses nexflix on 1.5mb cable. I had assumed that speed degradation could become a dramatic problem if many of my neighbors were streaming at the same time.

You need adblock plus with the easylist subscription.
Tools, addons, get addons, search for adblock plus, install it on your browser, restart, then go into the adblock plus options and add the easylist subscription to it.
If you need help just ask.

chas045-
DSL speed -- unlike cable speed -- is not affected by how many neighbors are using/sharing it.

OP, I have Dish too but I pay about 1/3 less than you. It's obviously all about which package you choose. I'm perfectly satisfied with the mid-range one I have. If you have some hundreds of channels now, do you think you'll be happy with having a dozen or fewer OTA? (I don'/t have the choice, the terrain requires either cable or satellite, and the cable system here isn't very good)

If you have a slow-ish connection (for whatever reason) when streaming content, pause the playback and give it a few minutes break to catch up. Most of the streaming services cache the signal (save ahead some number of seconds or minutes). That way, a constant image can be presented from an (always) variable downlink.

You're right, DSL isn't affected by congestion. It's the same slow speed all the time.

Watch Series: Bit Torrent Plug In ?

Follow-up question for any using this site or any other one that has 'Bit Torrent' plug in necessities: Are they safe ? (By "they" I mean both bit torrents and the plug ins.) Or, if they aren't always safe, is there a way to view them more safely ?

A few of the 'series' at the site in question only have links that require a bit torrent plug in to view them. I don't know anything about bit torrents or the plug ins (except that torrents are files of some sort). But I will at my earliest convenience do some research.

In the meantime, I naturally want to ask about this here, because I've come to value the input of the members of this board. :-)

I personal would not install any bit torrent software as it involves file sharing from anyone else involved. Too risky for me to get into it methinks.

I have only watched a couple of shows so far on 'Watch Series' and it has been great with no adverts or other hindrance. Any requiring me to install bit torrent will be bypassed. The number of clicks to get started is annoying but manageable.

Okay. Thanks for the torrent warning ! :-)

Agreed about the labyrinth one has to click through to actually watch an episode. But "manageable," like you say.

OK, curious, once adblock plus is installed on FF, how does one open Adblock plus to add the Easylist subscription

Cause, when I go into FF add ons and see adblock plus, checked out the options and see nothing with regards to easylist subscriptions

Here you go:
Add EasyList to Adblock Plus

you can easily get easylist there from the website but also if you right click on the ABP red stop sign that has been added to your browser and click on filter preferences you can see what ones you have and also use the add button to add. But you want easylist so if you have it you are good.

Another way to do the above task go to Tools bottom of list is the ABP stop sign from there filter preferences.

Question re: Watchseries on FF with adblocker plus...when the link opens the program directory with all the shows and you select one..say Six Millon dollar Man..click on an episode to watch (not download) you are taken to a Watch Series page with an arrow to click on..You click on the first one and you go to a Gorilla something or other page..Click on Continue and it starts downloading 4 video files, do you have to wait for all the video files to load or is this site a streaming site..(just wondering what the diff between Watch and Download is if both are downloading...Is this the proper drill???

Make that 8 video files plus flash 11 and a java file

Genes, I just did a test. Maybe I already had the apps needed on my computer but I went to Watch Series now. I didn't see six million dollar man so I chose Columbo because I plan to watch some episodes when I get time. I clicked through with only one 5 second delay. After I clicked on the arrow to start the video it uploaded for 12 seconds before starting. My experience has been that after an episode starts it continues without interruption.I have a DSL connection and just ran a speed test. My download speed was 8.61 Mbps.

I only downloaded one episode (can't remember why but...) and all the rest just played. I do not believe Adblock had any effect on my viewing because there would be a one second delay then a very short intro to the next segment as one expects when adverts finish and the program resumes on TV. This has been the same on one UK and 3 US series, it has been a very positive experience for me.

Currently watching a coal mining in WV series and a UK trucking documentary.

If you are using Firefox, have some type of popup blocker and are sent directly to the play video page (after selecting the link) then everything is working as it should.

I had forgotten to mention that there is a download button and to just ignore it.

As I said, I have used the site for over two years and it's been GREAT!

Every episode of House MD, Bones, CSI Miami etc. etc.

Enjoy it folks .. It's perfectly safe!

Hi guys,
I realize this is an old thread, and we watch Watch Series regularly, as well as other online sites. (primewire.ag, couchtuner.eu) and others.

We're currently watching White Collar and other series that have been finished/cancelled.

Last nite I was recommending a movie that we had recently seen and my friend said he'll try getting it on kicka$$. I hadn't heard of that site and it's a site where you can get music, books, tv shows, movies etc.

I looked into it and it is a Torrent site (he downloaded BitTorrent).

Owbist, I know nothing about torrents, what is it about them that you don't like? I'm just curious, as I know of people who do watch tv via Torrent

Oh, another program that is biting into Netflix is Popcorn Time. It is a downloadable program, but that is what we used to watch our movie last week. Incredible clear HD viewing.

The problem with torrents is you never really know what you're actually downloading. Even if it says, "clean and virus free", it's no guarantee. If you were a criminal type, you'd say that too.

All kinds of malware and viruses can be embedded in the file and you won't have any idea until you run it, and even then it might not be obvious until later, when strange things start happening.
It's a popular method of distributing malware and viruses actually - especially with pirated software.

Having said that, I've sometimes used torrents - indeed some open source software is available with that method. But I always run files from torrent **sites** through VirusTotal.com and my own antivirus software, and indeed, many times they've turned up malicious stuff.

You really need to be careful and know what you're doing.

Thanks so much for your explanation. Of course I do have malawarebytes, superantispyware and AVG, and Ccrap and run them regularly.

But I recently downloaded Open Office and something hitch-hiked along with it, and I couldn't get rid of it. I forget the name now,but it was an antivirus/spyware program and the deal was that it tells you how bad your computer is infected and you could get it cleaned up by buying their software.

Anyway, Revo Uninstaller found it and got rid of it.

So, I won't bother with any Torrent sites, this scam spyware site scared me to no end.

If you download OpenOffice using a torrent seed from their site, I doubt you'd run into problems. They should have an md5 checksum so that you can check if it's been tampered with.

(And btw, you might want to use LibreOffice, a fork of Open Office, which is under much more active development. The last stable release of OO was four years ago, whereas LibreOffice's was 10 days ago.)

But a lot of free software now tries to sneak in extra baloney as, how else are they going to make any money. But If you don't choose "skip", whatever, you end up getting it, so to speak.

Just last night I updated FileMenuTools - which is a really great set of utilities available via right click, but I'll be damned if I didn't have to say No to six different attempts to install "extra" software. Really unbelievable. I like the utility so much I went ahead with it, but you have to be vigilant.

This post was edited by kbarb on Mon, Feb 9, 15 at 2:56

And do not forget that using torrents to download material, like copyrighted movies, music, and tv shows, is illegal, and can result in significant fines if you're caught...which is not that hard to have happen.