The best free news streaming app you’re not using yet
Following the latest election news can be frustrating for cord cutters without a cable streaming plan. There aren’t too many free outlets to watch the news online, and when they do pop up, they’re taken down just as fast as they appeared.
With so much disinformation floating around online, the lack of streaming news options makes understanding the results even more confusing. Tap or click here to see how you can spot election disinformation online.
Thankfully you don’t have to shell out for an expensive subscription to get the latest news on your phone or streaming device. This free streaming service pulls stories from local and national news to give you a custom newsfeed you can watch anywhere.
Haystack has the news you’re looking for
Haystack is a free streaming news app available for iOS, Android, Roku players, Amazon Fire TV devices, Apple TV boxes, and Android TV devices. You can also try it out on select smart TVs from Samsung, LG and Vizio.
Haystack generates a personalized newscast for you with stories from sources all over the country. You can subscribe to both local and national news as well as weather forecasts. You can switch between stories you’re interested in or let the news roll in with Haystack’s auto-generated news playlists.
And if you’d prefer to watch live news, you can catch live streams from networks like ABC, CBS and Yahoo Finance. News satire and comedy clips from late-night shows can also show up in your feed if you subscribe to them.
One of our favorite features is the news ticker at the bottom of videos you watch in full-screen mode. Updates will cycle through headlines, stocks and weather, and clicking on any of the ticker stories will automatically open the news clip it came from.
What’s the catch? Is there a downside to Haystack?
Haystack is a news aggregator, so it doesn’t have original programming of its own. Sources are limited to just a handful of major networks, and there are no options for streaming cable news channels like Fox News, CNN or MSNBC.
Some of the clips that show up in your feed will be a few days old by the time they reach you. Stories are not curated, so be aware that some of the pieces you see may not be breaking news.
Despite these flaws, Haystack is a solid free app that pairs well with other free streaming TV apps like Pluto TV and Crackle, which show a mixture of live TV and curated shows at no cost for users.
Tap or click here to see why we love Pluto TV on our streaming devices.
Tags: Amazon, Apple, apps, cable, cord-cutters, Crackle, disinformation, elections, free, Pluto TV, streaming, streaming devices, streaming service, subscriptions
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