Twenty-nine apps across three sub-topics: on-demand libraries, live television and cable companions, free ad-supported channels, news feeds and scanner radio. The interesting question about a streaming app is never how many titles it lists. It is whether the plan you bought lets you watch the thing you want tonight, and who decides the order of your news.
Last reviewed 14 October 2026
29 apps · 3 sub-topics
Section 1
What we look at before describing a screen
Catalogue claims are marketing. A service will happily state a title count that changes with licensing and does not tell you whether the one programme you want is in your country. So we describe structure instead: live or on-demand, ad tier or paid tier, standalone or dependent on another subscription, and which device the licence allows.
For news apps we describe who controls the order of what you see, because that is the property that decides how much trust to place in it. A newsroom, a curator and a voting crowd produce three different objects that all present as a list of headlines.
Figures such as ratings and install counts appear on the linked Dlzer pages with the date we checked the store listing. They are not averaged into a score here, because a number copied from a store page measures the store page, not your experience.
- Live or on-demand. Whether the app can show something happening now. This is the sharpest line in the group and it is invisible on most pricing pages.
- What the tier controls. Ads, simultaneous streams, downloads, and whether next-day episodes or live sport are in the plan you are looking at.
- What it depends on. A pay-television subscription, a streaming device, a retail membership or a media server on your own network. Some of these apps are front ends for something you already pay for elsewhere.
- Who writes the running order. A newsroom, an algorithm, a curator or the readers. Stated per entry.
- Whether the content is licensed or volunteer-supplied. Free scanner audio and free ad-supported channels are both genuinely free, for opposite reasons.
- Whether Dlzer has two pages for the same app. Flagged in the entry, because it is our problem and not the reader’s.
Section 2
Eighteen ways to watch, and the three things that actually differ
18 listings · last reviewed 14 October 2026
Catalogue size is the least useful way to compare these. What differs is whether a service carries live channels or only on-demand titles, whether the tier you buy changes what you can watch this evening, and whether the app works at all without a second piece of hardware or a pay-television subscription behind it.
We split the group accordingly. Eight entries are libraries you watch when you choose. Ten are live television, cable companion apps or ad-supported channels that behave like a broadcast schedule no matter how modern the app looks. One of them is a media server that assumes you own the files.
On-demand subscriptions
Films and series on demand, with downloads for offline viewing and separate profiles inside one account. It carries no live channel, which is the distinction that matters when it is compared with the group below.subscription
The Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star catalogue under one roof. Which titles exist under that name depends on the region, because the bundle absorbs different libraries in different countries.subscription
Video included with a retail membership, with third-party premium channels subscribable inside the same app. Two different billing relationships therefore live in one interface.bundled membership
The company own productions plus a channel-subscription layer, and the place where purchases and rentals sit on Apple hardware. It is also the app that a household shares one login through.subscription
US network episodes the day after broadcast, plus originals. The ad-supported plan and the ad-free plan are materially different products, and the difference shows up mid-episode rather than on the pricing page.ad tier
A broadcaster catalogue that also carries a live feed of the linear channel on the higher tier, so the plan you pick changes whether you can watch something happening now.tier-dependent live feed
Anime delivered close to Japanese broadcast with subtitles, and a back catalogue deep enough to be the reason people hold the subscription between seasons.simulcast
Archive drama and crime from UK broadcasters, aimed at a genre audience and at households keeping a second country television, rather than at a general catalogue.niche catalogue
Live television, cable companions and free channels
A live-television package bought and watched in the app: a sports-heavy line-up, cloud recording, and no shop contract attached. The channel list is the product, and it changes.live tv bundle
A network streaming service with tiers ranging from a limited free plan to live sport and next-day episodes, so what you can watch is decided by the plan rather than by the catalogue.tiered
The archive holds a second page for the same service, written separately. We link both rather than pretend the duplication is not there.duplicate listing
Free, ad-supported linear channels arranged like a programme guide, with an on-demand layer behind them. The guides feel like cable and are funded by advertising.free with ads
Free films and television supported by advertising, with a licensed catalogue — the reason it is worth listing next to the paid services rather than dismissed.free with ads
Dlzer’s second page for the same free service, published under the shorter store title.duplicate listing
The account side of a cable subscription — bill, outage status, router settings and a route into the watching app. It is not the app you use to watch.account app
The watching side of the same subscription, gated by the television package on the account and, on some devices, by whether the provider allows the app at all.needs subscription
A remote and second screen for a streaming player: keypad search, private listening through the phone, and a channel guide. Without the hardware it has almost no purpose.needs hardware
A media server before it is a streaming app: you supply the files, the software organises artwork and metadata and streams them to other devices. The free plan is genuinely usable for a personal library.self-hosted
Section 3
News apps, sorted by who is actually deciding what you see
9 listings · last reviewed 14 October 2026
There are three kinds of app in this section and people install them interchangeably. A single publisher’s app shows you one newsroom’s running order. An aggregator republishes many publishers and chooses the order. A community platform lets readers decide the order by voting, which produces something neither a newsroom nor a curator would build.
The practical difference is what you should trust it for. A publisher app is sourcing. An aggregator is a discovery layer that you still have to read at the original byline. A community feed is a signal of what people are arguing about, and is frequently wrong about what happened.
A cable channel’s app: long-form video, a live stream in some placements, and a running order set by the channel’s own editorial priorities.single publisher
An aggregator that republishes partner wire and publisher items under one roof. The byline usually belongs to someone else, which is worth knowing when you judge a story.aggregator
Topic-led aggregation with followable subjects and push notifications, mixing editorial curation with publisher feeds.aggregator
Local-first news: council notices, crime and community items grouped by the location you set. That location permission is the whole product, so set it deliberately.location permission
Reading assembled into magazine-style collections from sources you pick. It is a wrapper around other people’s publishing, so the value is the curation, not the articles.curation layer
A writing platform where a subscription or a meter sits in front of much of the useful material, and the feed rewards engagement. Quality varies more than on a masthead-run publication.metered
Question-and-answer with a topic feed. Answers are not editorially checked, so read it as leads to verify rather than as sourcing.unverified answers
Community-ordered discussion in topic-run boards. The front page is a function of what you subscribe to and what is voting that hour, which is a different thing from a news service.community ranked
Scores, fixtures and highlights, with live video only for the competitions it holds rights to in your country. The rights, not the app, decide what you can watch.rights-bound
Section 4
Scanner and radio apps, which are communities rather than services
2 listings · last reviewed 14 October 2026
Both entries in this section depend on volunteers transmitting a feed. Nothing in the app generates the audio; a person with a receiver near a dispatch channel does. That is why coverage looks excellent in one metropolitan area and empty in another, and why an app that worked in the spring can be silent by autumn.
Live public-safety audio submitted by scanner owners. Feeds appear and disappear, and there may be nothing near you at the moment you look, which is the honest caveat for the whole category.volunteer feeds
A long-running scanner app drawing on a volunteer feed community plus archived calls. Treat the coverage map as a snapshot of who was transmitting recently.volunteer feeds
Section 5
Which of these is worth a monthly line item
Subscriptions are easiest to reason about as jobs. Assign each one a job, and the ones with no job fall out.
| The job you need done | The entry to start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| One general library, watched at your own pace | Netflix | No live channels, but downloads and profiles are the least friction of the group. |
| Household with children and a franchise preference | Disney Plus | The catalogue is the point; check what your region actually gets before assuming. |
| You already pay for the retail membership | Prime Video | It is included, so the marginal cost is zero, and extra channels are sold inside it. |
| Next-day network television in the US | Hulu | Read the ad tier carefully; it is a different product at a different price. |
| Live sport without a pay-television contract | Fubo, then the league app | A channel line-up you can switch off monthly, versus a rights-holder app that only works where they hold rights. |
| Cheap background television that looks like cable | Pluto TV or Tubi | Free and licensed, funded by ad breaks, with a schedule you do not control. |
| Watching files you already own | Plex | It is a server you run, which is more work and more freedom than any library app here. |
| Controlling a living-room box | The Roku companion app | Keypad search and private listening; it is not a standalone service. |
| Keeping up with one local area | Newsbreak, deliberately | Hyperlocal notices are genuinely useful and require you to hand over a location. |
| Reading widely without owning eleven apps | Flipboard or SmartNews | Curation layers over other publishers, so judge the sources, not the layout. |
| Finding what practitioners are arguing about | A ranked community feed is a strong signal of debate and a weak record of fact. | |
| Scores without commentary noise | ESPN | Fast for fixtures; live video only where the rights sit. |
A useful audit: open your subscription list and give every line a job. Two entries doing the same job is the most common way this category quietly costs money, because a free ad-supported tier and a paid ad-free tier of the same brand frequently sit on the same account.
The second pattern is dependency. A cable companion app, a streaming-box remote and a channel subscription inside a retail membership are all front ends for something else. Cancel the something else and the app becomes a login screen, which is worth knowing before you install four of them.
Section 6
Terms used on this page, in plain words
| Term | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Simulcast | An episode released within a day or two of its Japanese broadcast, subtitled. It is the reason an anime service beats a general library for one specific show. |
| AVOD | Advertising-supported video on demand: free to watch, paid for by ad breaks. Pluto and Tubi in this list work that way. |
| vMVPD | A virtual multichannel video package: a live channel line-up sold in an app instead of by a cable company, usually monthly and usually with cloud recording. |
| Tier | The plan within the service. Tiers commonly decide ad load, screen count, downloads and whether live channels are included, which is why comparing brand names alone misleads. |
| Next-day | Network episodes appearing the morning after broadcast rather than live. It is a licence term, not a software feature. |
| Media server | Software on your own machine that indexes your files and streams them to other devices. You are the catalogue. |
| Aggregator | An app that assembles other publishers’ stories into one feed. Useful for reach, weak as a source. |
| Scanner feed | Public-safety audio relayed by a volunteer with a receiver. Coverage is real only where someone is transmitting. |
Section 7
Questions readers ask about this category
Do you link to streams or host any video?
No. Dlzer describes applications and links to Dlzer’s own page about each one. There is no player, no stream and no downloadable media anywhere on this hub.
Why do two apps appear on this page twice?
Because the archive contains two pages each for Peacock and Tubi, written at different times under different store titles. Merging them would make one of the two addresses disappear, so they are grouped and labelled here until that decision is made on purpose rather than by accident.
Is a free ad-supported service worse than a paid one?
Not automatically. Free linear channels are licensed and paid for with ad breaks, and the trade is that the schedule is not yours. The paid tier usually buys control: no ads, downloads, or the current episode.
Which of these news apps is the least biased?
None of them answers that question, and an app that claims to is a red flag. What can be checked is the mechanism: who writes the running order, whose byline is on the story, and whether you can reach the original publisher in one tap.
Why is scanner radio on an entertainment page at all?
Because that is where readers look for it and where the archive files it. The two entries are labelled honestly as volunteer-dependent, which is the one fact that matters before installing.
Do you get anything if I subscribe through these links?
Nothing. No affiliate commission, no paid placement, no sponsored position. If that ever changes for an entry, the disclosure goes in the correction log with a date.
Section 8
Corrections and change log
We log what we got wrong, because an unlabelled rewrite is not a correction.
- 14 October 2026
- Page published with 29 listings across 3 sub-topics. Two duplicate-app pairs inside this hub are labelled rather than merged, and the note explains why.
- Editorial note
- A card-and-solitaire game had been auto-filed under streaming because its title shares a brand word with a subscription service. It was moved to the games hub before this page went live.
Spotted something wrong? Write to [email protected] with the page and the claim. We correct in public and keep the note.
Section 9
How this page is run
Independence. Written by Dlzer editorial staff from store listings, published plan pages and support documentation. No service reviewed or approved this page.
No streams. Dlzer does not host, link or sell video, and does not provide activation codes or free trials on anyone’s behalf.
Trademarks. The service and company names above belong to their owners and appear only to identify what is being described.
Figures. Ratings, install counts and update dates on the linked listing pages are the store’s own published values at the date recorded on that page.
Corrections. Write to [email protected] with the page and the claim. We correct in public and keep the note in the log above.