Trends and Entertainment

Media Just Wants to Be Free

You’ve slashed your entertainment budget to the bone. No more Friday night movies for you and you’re cutting off the digital cable. But you still need your Mad Men fix and you don’t want to miss the next Batman blockbuster. Thanks to the abundance of the Internet, you can scrap that entertainment budget altogether and go all-free-all-the-time. We’ve rounded up several sources that will keep your media habits intact without burning a hole in your wallet.

TV & Movies

Hulu.com – Why it’s great: New shows, old shows, 144 movies and trailers. The hitch: The new shows expire and the movies are cut with ads.

YouTube.com – Now home to more than just viral videos of six-year-olds talking about Darth Vader, YouTube has a movies and a television section from “old media.”

Freemooviesonline.com – If you’re a fan of the good, the bad and the extra-cheesy this website is for you. Uninterrupted streaming video of all the rubber-suited monsters and spaghetti westerns you could want.

Guba.com – This site has a good selection of streaming movies, especially anime and foreign films of the Asian persuasion. However, like most of the Internet, this site is 90% porn by volume.

The Pirate Bay – All the movies you want – including those in theaters now – with free jail time included. The Pirate Bay is not exactly legal, so proceed with caution. Download a bit torrent client before hitting this site.

isoHunt – Like The Pirate Bay, less than legal, but not as up front about it.  Get movies in theaters now and TV shows as they’re aired – but, try not to get caught. Download a bit torrent client before hitting this site.

Music

Pandora.com – Pick a band, any band, and Pandora will set you up with a playlist of musicians related to your pick by a complex algorithm. Good for parties if you don’t mind the occasional bizarre surprise.

Last FM – Pick a band and get a playlist, plus recommendations of other musicians you might like. Like Pandora, only with less science and more hipsters.

Deezer.com – Songs streamed to your computer by album. Refreshingly, Deezer does not try to guess your taste in music.

Jango.com – Another streaming music site with a funny name. Plays music by your chosen artist and other bands it thinks you’ll like. Much less accurate than Pandora, but still fun.

Books, Magazines & Newspapers

Project Gutenberg – This site has more downloadable books than any other place on the Web. Find any book you want, so long as it’s old enough to be past copyright.

Bibliomania.com – These books aren’t downloadable, so you have to squint and read them on the screen. On the plus side, doesn’t clutter up your hard drive with media.

Manybooks.net – Books here are downloadable and often – shockingly – fairly new. The hitch: you’ve probably never heard of the authors on this site.

Classicbookshelf.com – Unsurprisingly, the books here are all classics. This site has tried to remedy the age-old problem of splitting headaches caused by reading on your computer screen by giving you bigger print and a blue background.

The Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts – Books here are meant to “facilitate a liberal arts education.” In case you were wondering, that mainly means a pretentious Web design and no downloading.

Tags: books, media, movies, television