Most of us have multiple streaming service subscriptions (Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, etc). As money becomes tighter, some want to lighten their monthly subscription spend and here are some legal ways to stream.

Kanopy

Kanopy offers an interesting portfolio of artistic and classic films. Before you close this page thinking the content is low-grade, know that they even have some films from the Criterion collection.

Kanopy also supports AppleTV, Roku, Chromecast, AndroidTV, FireTV and SamsungTV.

The catch is that you have to be a member of an organization that is subscribed to their service (local library or University ) The one important note is that their film catalogue changes regularly so if you see a film you want to watch, stream it quickly.

Popcornflix

I know the name sounds like one of those Android side-loadable illegal BitTorrent streaming "services" but it isn't. Popcornflix offers comedies and mainstream movies (many recent releases) for free in exchange for inserting ads while you watch. You can watch Popcornflix through any modern web browser or via apps on Roku, AppleTV, Google Play, Amazon or Xbox.

Internet Archive

Many technical geeks know Internet Archive for their service that is trying to archive the web for posterity.

In addition to that noble cause, they also store and stream a considerable amount of classic black and white films (from days gone by). The Internet Archive waits until the copyright expires and then stores and streams it. Everything they stream is in the original unedited format.

Crackle

Crackle has been around for a while but never seems to have caught on. Owned by Sony, it offers relatively modern TV shows and movies for free. They monetize the service by inserting ads. Crackle offers some cult classic films that other platforms don't, so it is worth a look.

Hoopla

Similar to Kanopy, Hoopla requires you to be a member of a library that offers its services. Hoopla is owned by Midwest Tape, a company that supplies libraries with DVDs, CDs and audiobooks.

You sign up using your library card and you will instantly gain access to hundreds of movies and TV shows. Hoopla works via your web browser, on most tablets (Android, iPad), Smartphones (Android and iPhone) or on TV-connected devices like AppleTV, AndroidTV, Chromecasts, Roku and FireTV.

2 secrets you need to know for Amazon Prime Day

July 16, 2018GeneralEdward Kiledjian

Amazon Prime Day is here and expect millions of customers to go crazy buying things they don't need. At least those unneeded items are deeply discounted, right? Maybe! Thousands of items will be sold at their lowest price ever, but that isn't the case for everything.

The internet is here to save the day again. A free online tool called CamelCamelCamel will show you the truth.

You paste an Amazon link into the search bar at CamelCamelCamel and it will show you the item's price over time.

You copy the Amazon URL into the CamelCamelCamel search bar

Then you scroll midway down the results page and notice that the current promo is actually a good deal.

CamelCamelCamel covers Amazon sites for Canada, USA, Australia, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Do you want an example of a not so good deal? Here is one for you:

Looks like a good lightning deal...

CamelCamelCamel says this item was sold December 2017 for $53.82, a full $6.48 cheaper. This means that if you don't need this item right away, you may want to wait a bit or find an alternative that may actually be a deal.

And one more thing

I'll sweeten the pot with one more tip for Amazon Prime Day (PrimeDay) and this one is related to the product reviews. You will notice that those Bluedio headphones seem to have a good user review rating of 4/5 stars (with 273 customer reviews). Can you trust those reviews?

Enter Fakespot! Like CamelCamelCamel you copy the Amazon product URL into the Fakespot search bar and you are presented with a review reliability score

Fakespot isn't perfect but it is a great way to quickly determine how much trust you should put in the user reviews. Notice above the analysis is old. if you see that button, press the ReAnalyze button and wait until you get a new rating.

When I tested Fakespot with these on-special headphones, the user review rating improved from an F to a D.

The moral of the story is that you will probably find hundreds of great deals worth the asking price but make sure to perform your own due diligence using CamelCamelCamel and Fakespot.

Access paywall content for Free with this trick

October 10, 2014technologyEdward Kiledjian

There are dozens of large well respected online sites that protect their content using paywalls. A paywall is a fancy way to define subscriber only content. In the above case, it is an article about Elon Musk's electric car company called Tesla.

Unfortunately I can't read the article. If I click the X to close the subscription options, I get taken back to the homepage. But there is a way to gain access to the content without paying the subscription.

“If you read content from a specific site regularly, I recommend you pay the subscription fee and support the site. Without paying customers, the site will eventually wind down and you’ll lose your source.”

The trick to access the content is fairly straightforward. Right click on the link from the home page and copy the destination URL.

Then head over to Google Translate (link) and paste the URL into the translation box. Make sure the translate to is also English.

Then press Translate. The inaccessible site is now "translated" from english to english and you gain access to the content.

This is possible because many sites want search engines to index their content (in order to drive traffic) so when the page is read by Google, access is permitted and Google then displays it to you.

Scan that file

July 24, 2014technologyEdward Kiledjian

Image by Surian Soosay used under Creative Commons License — Image by Surian Soosay used under Creative Commons License

This blog is a hobby and in my day job (as the Chief Information Security Officer of a major international company) I see all kinds of attacks and malware. A considerable amount of infections are caused by users who run files that subsequently infect your machine. Doing so is as foolish as having unprotected sex.

Before you run any file, make sure you scan it first. You should always scan files using the antivirus on your computer first but there are also 2 very good services that scan your file using over a dozen different scanners (since no one scanner detect every malware),

The two sites are:

VirusTotal (link)
Jotti's malware scanner (link)

Here is a simple walkthrough using Virus total

1 - Go to the site

2 - You click on Choose file and select the file you want scanned

Click Scan It

If the file has already been scanned by someone else (recently) it will show you a screen like this

Even if you see this, I recommend you click on Reanalyse. If it hasn't been scanned, it will go straight to the scan screen.

As it scans, you will see this message on the top of the screen. Just wait

Once the scan completes, you'll see something like this

In this case the site believes the file is harmless and I am much more comfortable running it.

Will Twitter offer a commerce platform?

February 3, 2014technologyEdward Kiledjian

Re/Code, the new site from Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, revealed (link) that Twitter is working on a new commerce platform that will enable users to buy and sell via tweets.

It looks like Twitter will use the Sponsored Tweet model and insert commerce ads into your twitter stream. The user can click on the link and will be taken to a special Twitter page showing the standard commerce information (pictures, description and the ability to buy the item. The current information shows Fancy.com as the backend.

Twitter has refused to comment on this story but the word on the street is that Twitter is attempting to find solid, highly desirable partners for a possible launch.

I found it interesting that these sample screenshots show Bell as the wireless provider. Not sure if thats a clue to a Canadian test launch or just a coincidence.

Sites to legally watch streaming movies