Amazon Freevee

My Experience with Amazon Freevee

I picked up Amazon Freevee about a month ago because my friend Sarah kept saying it’s got a bunch of free stuff without paying for another subscription. I’m a college student so every dollar counts, and after Netflix raised their price again, I was looking for anything free that doesn’t suck. The app itself is straightforward—you just log in with your Amazon account if you have one, or make a new one. I spent a Saturday afternoon browsing through their movie selection and ended up watching some random action flick from the 90s. The picture quality on my iPhone 15 Pro was fine, not 4K or anything, but good enough for a phone screen. What bugged me a bit is the ads. There’s a bunch of them, like every 10 minutes or so, and they interrupt at the worst moments. Last Tuesday I was getting into a tense scene in this thriller and boom—commercial for laundry detergent. It kinda kills the mood. But hey, it’s free so I get it. The selection isn’t huge compared to paid services, but I found a few old TV shows I used to watch as a kid, which was a nice surprise. I also tried downloading an episode for offline viewing before my bus ride to campus, and it worked fine, though the download took a while on my home Wi-Fi. One thing that annoyed me is the app sometimes freezes when I swipe to skip forward, especially during ads. I have to close it and reopen.

Features Worth Noting

The biggest feature here is obviously the price—zero dollars. For a broke student like me, that’s huge. You get access to movies, some TV shows, and a handful of Amazon Originals like “Jury Duty” which I actually heard was good. The app gives you personalized recommendations based on what you watch. For example, after I watched a couple of crime dramas, it started suggesting similar stuff, which saved me time scrolling. You can also create multiple profiles if you share the account with roommates or family, which is nice because my sister and I have totally different taste. The download option lets you save stuff for offline viewing, and that came in clutch during a train ride last week when I had no signal. The interface is pretty basic too—just a home screen with categories like “Trending” and “Recently Added,” plus a search bar. It’s not fancy but it works. One thing I wish it had is a proper watchlist or queue system. Right now you can add stuff to “My Stuff” but it’s a bit clunky. Also, the app has closed captions and multiple audio options for some content, which is helpful when I’m studying in a quiet library and need subtitles.

What Needs Work

The ads are the obvious downside. They’re frequent, sometimes repetitive, and you can’t skip most of them. I counted once—there were six ad breaks in a 90-minute movie. That’s a lot. Also, the app crashed on me three times in one week. Once during a movie, I got a black screen and had to force close it. I tried contacting support through the app’s help section, and after three days, I got a generic email saying “restart your device.” Not helpful. Another thing is the content library is small compared to something like Tubi or Pluto TV. I searched for a popular show from last year and it wasn’t there. The search function itself is okay but sometimes shows results that aren’t actually available to watch—just placeholders. Also, the app drains my iPhone battery faster than I expected. I watched an hour-long episode and my battery dropped from 80% to 55%. That’s rough for a student who’s on campus all day without a charger. Lastly, the app feels a bit slow when loading thumbnails or switching categories, especially on my home Wi-Fi which isn’t the fastest. It could use some optimization.

Pricing

It’s free. That’s the whole pitch. No subscription, no hidden fees, no trial period that expires. You just sign up with an email or Amazon account and start watching. There are ads, which is how they make money, but you’re not paying anything out of pocket. For me, a student with a tight budget, that’s the main reason I’m still using it despite the annoyances. I have Prime Video through my mom’s account but Freevee is separate and doesn’t require Prime. So it’s genuinely free for anyone. No premium tier or upgrade nonsense either, which I appreciate. Just remember you’ll need a decent internet connection or data plan for streaming. I usually use my campus Wi-Fi or home Wi-Fi to avoid burning through my limited mobile data. The offline download feature is nice for when I’m on the bus, but it only works if you have enough storage space on your phone—I have an iPhone 15 Pro with 128GB, so it’s fine, but if you have an older phone with less space, keep that in mind.

Developer Notes

The app is made by Amazon Mobile LLC, so it’s not some random sketchy developer. That gives me some peace of mind. But the support experience was pretty bad. I emailed them about the crashing issue and it took over 72 hours to get a copy-paste response saying to restart my phone and update the app. I already did that. No real help. I feel like for a company as big as Amazon, they could have a better support system—maybe a live chat or faster email replies. On the plus side, the app gets updated fairly often. I saw an update in the App Store about two weeks ago that said “bug fixes and performance improvements.” The crashing did stop for a few days, but it came back. So it’s a mixed bag. I’d say the developer is putting in effort but the app still feels a bit unfinished compared to something like YouTube or Netflix’s mobile app.

Security & Privacy

Since it’s Amazon, I assume they have decent security. But the app asks for a bunch of permissions—location, notifications, and access to your photo library (for uploading a profile picture). I denied the location and photo library access and it works fine. You do have to log in with an Amazon account or create one, so your email and basic info are stored with them. They probably track your viewing habits for ads and recommendations, which is standard for free services. I didn’t notice anything creepy like weird pop-ups or data requests. Just keep in mind it’s ad-supported so they’re definitely collecting data on what you watch to serve you targeted commercials. That’s the trade-off for free streaming. One thing I didn’t like is the app asked for permission to send push notifications right away. I said no because I don’t need random alerts about new shows. Overall, feels safe enough, but if you’re really privacy-conscious, you might want to skip it.