TVTonic for Windows

Watch the Olympics online for free

The 2008 Olympic Games are little more than a month away now and if you don't have access to a TV over the summer months or can only see it via pay-per-view channels, then you can watch it online for free courtesy of TVTonic.

No, it's nothing to do with Softonic but it's a P2P TV app with access to hundreds of international channels worldwide. They've done a deal with US broadcaster NBC which allows you to download Olympic events for free so at the time of writing, that's it's big appeal. The catch is that they're only available 12 hours after the events finish although because of the time difference between China and the rest of Europe and the US, that won't actually be as annoying as it sounds probably.

Apart from the Olympics TVTonic has quite a few other interesting broadcasts you might like to check out. It's obviously been designed with software fans in mind because it features a prominent section in it's broadcasting schedule called "TechTonic" in which it highlights you can watch programs such as "Diggnation" and "The GigaOm Show". Plus it has tons of channels devoted to video game reviews and interviews, music videos, movie trailers, breaking news. For instance, you can see what's on offer Movie wise here. Plus you can subscribe to over 350 channels available in the guide or any RSS 2.0 feed with video enclosures. The overall general presentation of TVTonic is superb - it feels like a professional cable TV application with a superb channel menu and program organizer that reminds me a bit of Joost.

Unfortunately, at the moment TVTonic only works with Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer but if they expand it to Firefox too, this could become one of the best online TV apps we've seen for a while.