Samsung TV Plus is free, and you can now watch it on the web and via Chromecasts

Have you ever heard of Samsung TV Plus? I won’t fault you if you hadn’t, because neither had I until recently. It could be because I’m a Pixel user at heart, and am not really into Samsung products, but that’s a topic for another day. Anyway, the company’s free, global television streaming service that used to only be available on Samsung TVs and phones is now widely available via the web. It can also be sent to your big screen non-Samsung TV via Google Cast, so if you have a Chromecast Ultra or a Chromecast with Google TV, this is fantastic news!

Samsung TV Plus offers instant access to news, sports, entertainment, and more and has apparently become one of the fastest-growing streaming services in the world right under my nose. It was launched back in 2015, and since then, it has branched out to 23 countries (most recently India a few months ago) and has over 1,000 channels worldwide!

For those who are getting a bit weary of Youtube TV’s pricing or the constant subscription costs to other providers, Samsung TV Plus is completely free – no subscription fee, no credit cards, – nothing. Obviously, the company hopes to draw in new users and hook them into its ecosystem of hardware and software, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, I guess. What I like is that the service has a channel lineup that’s separated by category, and you can jump down the list with a single click to find something of interest.

Again, I don’t have any Samsung hardware aside from a Chromebook, and if you don’t either, this seems like a great option to experience its offerings without an immediate buy-in. I will say though that upon signing up, I immediately received three separate emails from Samsung regarding rewards and such, so it wastes no time attempting to onboard you. Samsung states that it will continue to expand its ability to compete with other streaming services too, so I also wouldn’t be surprised if TV Plus gained a subscription cost at some point, though I’m not sure if that goes against its mission or reason for creating the service (global availability, accessibility, etc).

Truth be told, Samsung is so big a company that it has its own army, so they probably don’t need to charge for a TV service – all of its money comes from hardware and so on, but who knows what the future holds? So far, it’s amassed billions of minutes of streaming every month, so we’ll see where this goes. To get started, simply visit the Samsung TV Plus website, and sign in with your Google account or create a separate login!

It’s a shame that Samsung, of all people, didn’t properly set up the appropriate favicon options for the site, so Chromebook owners who want to turn this into a shortcut as to access it in ‘web app’ form won’t get but a standard block icon with an ‘S’ on it – yuck. For now, I suppose this service will ride the trails of free TV services on the web alongside Pluto and Crackle, but let me know in the comments if you’re willing to give it a go!