Alex was thrilled. It worked perfectly for a week.

Want me to help you find legitimate free sports or live TV options instead?

Immediately, his browser started redirecting every new tab to scam betting sites. His antivirus flagged — the extension had been harvesting his cookies, including saved logins for email and social media. Within hours, his Instagram was hacked, used to post crypto scams.

Then, during a live game, a pop-up appeared not for an ad, but for a asking him to "confirm you're human" by downloading a browser extension. The extension was named "SafeStream Plus." He installed it.

The twist? That glowing Reddit post wasn't a real fan — it was a bot network set up by the same people who built the fake "alternative" site. They'd been seeding recommendations for weeks, waiting for Freestreams-live1 to go down.