{"slug": "tv-explorer", "name": "TV Explorer", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 3, "warners": 0, "score": 2.753, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2026-05-29", "latest": "2026-07-24", "why": "", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": "tvexplorer.live", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://tvexplorer.live", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["TV Explorer"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 784646528, "item_id": 49040408, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49040408", "by": "bwoah", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Still, I love it. It's great and I use it daily.", "excerpt": "This is super cool. Thanks for building it. Here are a couple of issues I'm seeing in Brave on Debian: The player's mute button effectiveness lasts for fractions-to-seconds before the player unmutes itself. I instead need to mute the tab. Fit Screen doesn't do anything when clicked. Full Screen doesn't preserve the stream's aspect ratio and instead stretches to the displays' aspect ratio, which on my non-16:9 display", "context": "", "use_case": "watching free HLS TV channels", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 773314816, "item_id": 48332176, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48332176", "by": "abailin", "date": "2026-05-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is an amazing product.", "excerpt": "This is an amazing product. One of the coolest things about this is that there\u2019s no commercials. Where the commercial time would be on BBC Earth, it\u2019s a loop of animals with soothing music. 10/10 experience Why not window.history.pushState like https://tvexplorer.live/tv?channel=bbc-earth - that way browser back/forward acts as changing the channel", "context": "", "use_case": "Watching free online TV", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: TV Explorer. Adding advanced UI to free online TV"}, {"id": 773216224, "item_id": 48326014, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48326014", "by": "cwharris", "date": "2026-05-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is awesome! We need more projects like this!", "excerpt": "This is awesome! We need more projects like this! I'm sitting here watching music videos from Mongolia, having a legitimately cool digital experience. It just _feels_ different, like I'm a kid in the 90's scanning cable channels, finding whatever's interesting. Roulette-like, but with results filtered by what different cultures find generally acceptable. Very early-internet vibes on this, but with modern quality and ", "context": "", "use_case": "watching online TV channels", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: TV Explorer. Adding advanced UI to free online TV"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["watching free hls tv channels", "watching free online tv", "watching online tv channels"], "compared": [], "makers": [{"id": 789284912, "item_id": 49330307, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49330307", "by": "dtagames", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "my TV Explorer has more than 10K free channels with no signups", "excerpt": "As an alternative, my TV Explorer has more than 10K free channels with no signups.[0] It's a demonstration project for my Watson software engine, posted earlier. [1] [0] https://tvexplorer.live [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48325624", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Best IPTV Services in 2026: Top Providers Reviewed"}, {"id": 783512240, "item_id": 48969515, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48969515", "by": "dtagames", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "TV Explorer does keep track of what's tunable", "excerpt": "Thanks for the feedback and I'm sorry that happened. Because the data comes from a public GitHub list of channels, the app has no way to know what will be geoblocked for you (or not) or actually online at the moment (or not) until you try to tune it -- very much like an old analog TV. But... TV Explorer does keep track of what's tunable (with status lights down the left column) and also lets you scan in the backgroun", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 783439360, "item_id": 48964960, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48964960", "by": "dtagames", "date": "2026-07-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For a no hacks alternative, I built TV Explorer.", "excerpt": "For a no hacks alternative, I built TV Explorer. It puts the channel's published HLS stream into your browser with no interim steps. Uses the public GitHub list of more than 10,000 free channels. https://tvexplorer.live", "context": "", "use_case": "watch free TV channels in browser", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 773965424, "item_id": 48372839, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48372839", "by": "dtagames", "date": "2026-06-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Try the Scan & Remove feature and see if you like it", "excerpt": "Thank you so much! I'm glad you're enjoying it. The blocking and my lack of any way to know about or fix it is definitely one of the downsides of having such open and community-sourced content. Try the Scan & Remove feature and see if you like it, documented here: https://tvexplorer.live/help/25-things-18", "context": "", "use_case": "Browsing free online TV", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: TV Explorer. Adding advanced UI to free online TV"}, {"id": 773383888, "item_id": 48336493, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48336493", "by": "dtagames", "date": "2026-05-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "That's great to hear.", "excerpt": "Thanks so much! That's great to hear. The cleanup feature you want exists and is called Scan and Remove. More deets here: https://tvexplorer.live/help/25-things-18", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: TV Explorer. Adding advanced UI to free online TV"}, {"id": 773210048, "item_id": 48325628, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48325628", "by": "dtagames", "date": "2026-05-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I built this app for myself after being disappointed with the options for viewing IPTV online.", "excerpt": "I built this app for myself after being disappointed with the options for viewing IPTV online. Thousands of global channels broadcast their streams but there's no great way to find, filter, save, and share them. Since it was launched during the war, comparing news broadcasts from different countries and perspectives became the number one use case. But not far behind was language learning, something I used TV for as a", "context": "", "use_case": "browsing and sharing IPTV channels", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: TV Explorer. Adding advanced UI to free online TV"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48325624", "title": "Show HN: TV Explorer. Adding advanced UI to free online TV", "mentions": 5}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48964015", "title": "item 48964015", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49328126", "title": "Best IPTV Services in 2026: Top Providers Reviewed", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47677971", "title": "Ask HN: How do you promote apps which are vibe coded but has real life usecase?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 784646528, "item_id": 49040408, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49040408", "by": "bwoah", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Still, I love it. It's great and I use it daily.", "excerpt": "This is super cool. Thanks for building it. Here are a couple of issues I'm seeing in Brave on Debian: The player's mute button effectiveness lasts for fractions-to-seconds before the player unmutes itself. I instead need to mute the tab. Fit Screen doesn't do anything when clicked. Full Screen doesn't preserve the stream's aspect ratio and instead stretches to the displays' aspect ratio, which on my non-16:9 display", "context": "", "use_case": "watching free HLS TV channels", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 773314816, "item_id": 48332176, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48332176", "by": "abailin", "date": "2026-05-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is an amazing product.", "excerpt": "This is an amazing product. One of the coolest things about this is that there\u2019s no commercials. Where the commercial time would be on BBC Earth, it\u2019s a loop of animals with soothing music. 10/10 experience Why not window.history.pushState like https://tvexplorer.live/tv?channel=bbc-earth - that way browser back/forward acts as changing the channel", "context": "", "use_case": "Watching free online TV", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: TV Explorer. Adding advanced UI to free online TV"}, {"id": 773216224, "item_id": 48326014, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48326014", "by": "cwharris", "date": "2026-05-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is awesome! We need more projects like this!", "excerpt": "This is awesome! We need more projects like this! I'm sitting here watching music videos from Mongolia, having a legitimately cool digital experience. It just _feels_ different, like I'm a kid in the 90's scanning cable channels, finding whatever's interesting. Roulette-like, but with results filtered by what different cultures find generally acceptable. Very early-internet vibes on this, but with modern quality and ", "context": "", "use_case": "watching online TV channels", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: TV Explorer. Adding advanced UI to free online TV"}]}