If you were chapfallen after Hulu X’d out their free tier last year, we’ve got some exciting news for you. Hulu kicked off as the best place to stream movies, TV shows & live TV channels on the Internet. The company comes with both free and paid versions, offering a huge library of TV series to the users.
Somewhere around August last year, the media streaming giant took a big step to go subscription-only, catering to premium users and did away with the ‘free’ version. That decision left a lot of users feeling disappointed because not everyone has the budget to subscribe to paid plans to stream movies and TV series.
However, soon after that, in a rather low-key manner, Hulu partnered with Yahoo to beget a free video-on-demand service. While some of you might be aware of this new service, many others still believe that it is no longer possible to view Hulu’s free content. Say hello to the new Hulu Free plan, “Yahoo! View”!
A Brief Preface To Yahoo View
Contents
Formerly known as Yahoo! Video, Yahoo! View was originally established to enable entertainment seekers to stream the latest episodes of TV shows from TV networks like ABC, NBC, and Fox. Later, the service was rebranded to Yahoo! Screen, focusing more on producing in-house TV shows and web-series. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out very well and the company was pushed to take it down.
Finally, Yahoo re-launched their service as ‘Yahoo! View’, in association with Hulu, an already well-established company, to move Hulu Free version’s content to their own library. It’s safe to say that Yahoo! View is veritably the successor to Hulu’s free version.
What Can You Watch?
Users can watch the most recent episodes (five episodes) from any of your most beloved shows only a week after they’ve been officially telecasted. As mentioned earlier, these shows are mostly from TV channels like NBC, ABC, and Fox ranging from comedy to drama to action to Sci-Fi.
Some of the most popular shows that once featured on Hulu are ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’, ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’, ‘Modern Family’, ‘Nashville’, ‘Blindspot’, ‘Prison Break’, ‘The Voice’, and ‘Emerald City’.
Aside from syndicated American shows, Yahoo! View also features Korean drama, Brit TV series, Anime, movie trailers, as well as short video clips, behind-the-scenes of popular interviews, and blog clips from Tumblr.
How Is the Interface and Layout?
With a bright violet and white scheme, Yahoo! View is guaranteed to latch you onto its website. The home page displays a little ‘featuring Hulu’ to the right, a big and clear search bar at the top, and several tabs like Comedy, Anime, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Drama, Action & Adventure, and Movies.
Under the aforementioned categories, you’ll see a banner of the most recently added content. As you scroll down, there will be thumbnails of various TV series and video clips thoughtfully sorted into different sub-categories like ‘Popular Shows’, ‘Recent Episodes’, and ‘Recent Clips’. All in all, the design is pretty neat and the interface is quite simple and glitch-free.
Device Support
Unfortunately, as of today, Yahoo! View is accessible only in the United States and you can watch the content on your laptops, desktops, and Android devices. Hopefully, they will expand into other countries and be supported on various other devices as the company grows.
| Yahoo View |
Yahoo! View’s Snags
The biggest hole in Yahoo’s streaming service is that you cannot watch full episodes using Android’s google play. Instead, users are only given access to short clips and that sort of defeats the purpose of the app. Moreover, these short clips are interrupted with 30-second ads, adding to the frustration.
Conclusion
Yahoo! View is just about a year old. Although it does have a few bugs, we think you must definitely check it out. While you maybe unable to watch full-length episodes of certain shows, Yahoo! View does offer full episodes of Anime series like Naruto, Sailor Moon, and One-Punch Man.
