Table Of Content
gowatching.com
The world of online TV and movie streaming is constantly expanding, changing, and evolving. In fact, when it comes to streaming digital content online, we are just beginning to scratch the surface. Who knows where this industry will be headed in the next 10, 20, or 50 years? Streaming is such a convenient and beloved way to watch movies and TV shows that it's easy to forget how relatively new online streaming is.
That being said, there are a lot of new streaming platforms going up all the time. For instance, Disney Plus just took the world by storm in the last year, becoming a cultural phenomenon thanks to their iconic library of classic Disney films, but also thanks to a smash hit original Star Wars episodic series, The Mandalorian. HBO Max just finally launched a few months ago. And NBC is poised to release its own streaming platform called Peacock in the summer of 2020. It's safe to say that the streaming industry is booming, and it will only continue to grow in the coming years.
However, choosing a streaming service can be a stressful endeavor. The more specialized the industry becomes, with each network and production studio putting forth its own streaming option, the more segregated content will come to be. Each network has the right to its original programming. And unfortunately, it looks like each network also wants a slice of the streaming pie.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between streaming services and cable TV, where each network exists as its own separate channel and many of them require special (and expensive) cable packages in order to access them. This is disappointing, especially if you turned to streaming platforms because of how convenient and relatively affordable they once were when compared with traditional cable TV.
If you want to access multiple streaming services, it can be expensive these days. Each one has its own separate monthly price tag. But if you want to be able to access all of your favorite shows and movies, it is commonly seen as the only option. Just having subscriptions to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, HBO, and Disney Plus can cost upwards of $60 or $70 a month. Streaming is no longer an affordable alternative to cable TV.
Which is unfortunate because there is nothing better than coming home after a long day of work and just turning your brain off, turning on a show. Entertainment should not be reserved for only the affluent. I believe that movies and television should be available for all, no matter what socioeconomic situation you may be in. This is why I am happy to report that, in addition to the main, big-name, popular premium streaming platforms, there are countless free streaming sites to choose from as well.
Another issue with free streaming sites is that they can often be of low quality, which can impact internet safety. Far too many free streaming sites exist as little more than ad space, for instance, and although they may be safe, they are not going to be very useful. Others, though, can be a bit more malicious. I've been to my fair share of free streaming sites that are dense of viruses, trackers, and trojans. You definitely have to be careful and beware when you are looking for a new free movie and TV streaming site.
I would highly recommend that you load your online arsenal with solid lines of defense. Everyone should get a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, in order to protect their data online, for starters. There are some valuable internet safety programs in the Useful software category.
But at the end of the day, once you have found a streaming site that is safe and has been vetted by me (no worries, I vet all of the sites that I list for safety before I review them), there is still no guaranteeing that it will be any good or worth your time. But that is precisely why I do these reviews. I weed through the garbage so that you don't have to. Because even though a site may be safe, that does not mean it is good - nor does it mean that it even truly is a free streaming site. A great deal of these sites does not even hold up their end of the bargain. They may claim to be a free streaming site, for example, but not actually have anything to stream!
Let's take a look at Go Watching to see where it falls on this spectrum.
Design
Upon landing on Go Watching, I immediately receive a good first impression. The site looks sleek and professional. It has a minimalistic design with just a search bar in the middle of the page. This is a good start, as many free streaming sites suffer from poor design. It has a highly polished feel, which is reassuring.
Once you conduct your search on the site, the results will be listed in the middle of the page. To the left are several filtering options, including genre, content type (movies or TV shows), and year of release (choose a year from a convenient grid). The site is very user-friendly and easy to use with few ads. However, there are a lot of Amazon Prime ads which can be slightly suspicious. But more on that in a bit.
Content
This is where Go Watching starts to lose some major points for me. The entire model appears to be built around providing you with links to streaming services that will allow you to watch what you want, but only if you sign up for a free trial. So, this site is not entirely accurate when it calls itself a free streaming site. What might be more fitting would be to call it a free trial streaming search engine.
And that's why there are so many Amazon Prime ads. Go Watching seems to be little more than a database of films and TV shows, all of which link to Amazon Prime. Although this can be annoying, especially if you were looking for a free resource to actually watch movies and TV shows, it can be seen as a potential alternative to using Amazon Prime in order to find what you're looking for - a streaming service with a notoriously bad interface.
It appears that Go Watching also links to the Discover Channel, Hay U, MGM, and ITV Hub Plus websites.
Pricing and Plans
It is technically free to use Go Watching, but after your free trials expire, you will have to pay whatever monthly fee is associated with the streaming service in question. For example, Amazon Prime Video is $8.99 a month. So, technically, it's ?free? but it's not really what you might expect.
Suggestions that I have for Go Watching
I would really like to see Go Watching become more useful as a free streaming service. Even if they only offered a few titles that I could stream without signing up for a third-party service, that would be great. However, until then, I cannot say that this site is extremely useful.
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