Was a member approx. 2 months prior to this review.
Pros:
- downloads will resume if your connection is interrupted
- epoch is an option for billing
- no download limits
Cons:
- No download limits mean you could grab all the videos from this small site in an hour or two if their speeds were modern
- did I mention that speeds are really bad?
- Free tube quality videos
Bottom Line:
The only reason I joined is I'd seen a clip on a tube site and was interested in the female in the clip. I wasn't sure why the site made a big deal out of the guys being straight, but after watching you realize it's probably a site designed to appeal to gay men who might have some sort of fetish regarding women, or more specifically, men who are attracted to women, because you don't get to see much of the womens faces. There are a couple of attractive women on the site, but any action will be focused on the faces or bits of the males in the scene, many of which present themselves as liking other men more than the woman (to the point where they engage at times). The woman is a prop. One video is two "straight" guys having a bizarre threeway with a blowup doll, which might be the strangest premise that I've ever seen.
When you join there is a bonus pulldown at the top of the screen that directs you to a half dozen or so gay sites, so that helps support that this must be a gay fetish site.
Not a lot of pretty is the nicest way to describe the style of the actors, sets, and filming. My best attempt to ask you to imagine lots of early 1990s punk rock cosplayers as filtered through an eastern European nation except it's probably Portland. Many of the locations have junk on the floor or stacked in the room where it's being filmed, and there are often sheets or blankets over the windows. It helps with the cosplay punk rock feel I guess, but it's kind of depressing, especially when combined with poor lighting and cinematography and grainy video.
I've already covered how there's not a lot of focus on the ladies, but the part I wasn't expecting was that the paid video quality appears to be the same as tube site quality. The oldest videos show 320x240, and it looks as terrible as you'd imagine. With others that look a bit better than early 2000s clips, the video resolution in VLC it shows 720x480. There are no other download options, so that seems to be the only resolution available. Some of the older videos show 960x540, but visually there is no difference between the two. There's a big size difference, though. (100mb vs 500mb)
I compared it to the lower quality but still okay looking non-hd videos at a few other sites: Teamskeet "high" 1024x576
adulttime 960x544
The adulttime is the one that is puzzling because it's still very watchable (as is the teamskeet clip). I guess it's camera differences, or maybe it's filmed in HD and re-encoded into lower resolutions, but these look night and day in comparison to the ones on this site. Like I said, the videos look like what you'd find on free tube sites. I couldn't find any resolution options.
One more notes regarding the speed: More than once I saw a file that was smaller than 100mb take two minutes to download.
I could see this appealing to a very specialized niche, but unless you've read this and thought "Oh yeah, that's my thing" then you might be disappointed.
Current Member for less than 1 month (at the time of review).
Pros:
- Site offers 194 scenes (updates once a week)
- 166 models with very unique authentic looks and styles
- Recent scenes are available as 1280x720p MP4
- All scenes offered as stream and download at very fast speeds
- Detailed model (including video interviews) and scene information available
- Production quality is very high, lightning, cutting and camera work seem very professional
- Offers a 3-day-trial-membership without limitations
- Site navigation is very easy, you can browse by model, tag, rating, views, date etc.
- Allows multiple downloads and (with limitations - see cons) download managers
Cons:
- You have to login twice and answer a CAPTCHA
- No actual search-field
- You can use download-managers, but can't browse the site during your download, as only one program can be logged in
- Interviews are streaming only, there's no option to download these
- There are a few scenes that only exist to advertise products (Spunk Lube, Fleshjack, ...)
- Some scenes didn't work as the files were corrupt, support was non-existant
Bottom Line:
Alternadudes is definitely a unique site featuring several kinds of alternative styled models like surfers, rockers, emos, punks, goths, skaters, guys with tattoos and piercings. Their styling doesn't seem fake, most models are very authentic. Model age is ranged from 18 to early 30s and some scenes offer a quite unusual model mix. The amount of solos is - especially for older scenes - quite high with alot more duo scenes appearing recently.
The site runs actually on a WordPress blog as CMS, a thing I've never seen before, but it actually works out pretty well, the only thing I'm missing is an actual search-field. You can search by model, tag or date and you can sort both - models and scenes - by number of views, ratings, date and name. You can leave comments on model and scene pages and you can rate them or add them to your favorites for later browsing. Model pages give alot of information and I actually think those information is honest, a thing I rarely see, because dicks are smaller and models might be older than what other sites tell you they are. There are model interviews for nearly every model on the site.
All videos are available as stream or download in different sizes up to 1280x720p HD MP4. Every scene is available as medium-quality WMV. Streaming and downloading is very fast, you can download multiple scenes at once and download links do not expire. You are limited to streaming one scene at once, though. Download managers are supported, but you can't browse the site during your download, because you can only have one session logged in, so you are logged out of the site in your browser while you use your download manager. Model interviews are streaming-only, you can't download them.
Production quality seems to be very professional, lightning and camera work are very good, some scenes get sent-in by amateur models shot at their home, quality depends on the model's setup. There could be a bit more story line, most scenes start right away, it's sad, because there's a wide range of sets they use to shoot videos and it would be very easy to create a story out of those.
Extras are a monthly desktop wallpaper calendar and behind-the-scenes action. I didn't like the wallpapers, but the behind-the-scenes were fun and interesting to watch.
Photos are often vid caps, you can tell the site's focus is videos. They are available for download as ZIP or as slideshow.
Overall the site is very unique and offers you exclusive content, you'll see nowhere else. Videos are very enjoyable, but 4 updates a month is not enough to pay $29,95 / month.
Current Member for less than 1 month (at the time of review).
Pros:
+ Unique site with guys you very rarely see in gay porn
+ Super-fast download speeds (though see cons for the flip side of this!)
+ Content is dated, with an decent update every week
+ Billing by CCBill
+ No regional billing as far as I can see
+ HD (1280x720) available
+ MP4 and WMV files plus in-browser streaming
+ Good quality, clear, well-filmed videos
+ Good amount of archive material
Cons:
- I suppose to maintain high download speeds, you can only download one movie at a time - download managers and manual multiple downloads won't work
- You need to enter a "captcha"-type security code every time you log in
- Support is non-existant - sent two e-mails via their feedback form which were ignored
- Feedback is allowed on the videos but doesn't seem to be responded to
- Duo scenes marry very different "types", one of which you may dislike
- Site could be organised better - search functions are poor
- Can't download interviews with models
- Photos are sometimes just vidcaps
- Can't see the size of file before you download it - a pain, as HD files are big (1GB-plus)
- HD is MP4 only, no HD WMV option
- Rather too many solo scenes for me - some models are solo-only
Bottom Line:
Alternadudes leapt out at me as a site to try when I found it on TBP, because I love certain types of "alternative" looking men, and you so often don't find them on gay websites - and certainly not on more professional ones.
I love men with long hair, and Alternadudes has lots of them - probably at least a third of the models have long hair, which is great for me!
Their definition of "alternative" is fairly wide, which I like although I suppose purists might quibble with some of them - still, with alternative-looking men in such short supply in gay porn I'd say it's best to be grateful it exists at all!
They tend to focus on rockers, punks, emos, goths, skaters and tattooed or pierced guys. Most guys are white, but there's a fair amount of Hispanic guys too and a few black guys. They tend to be younger, about 18 - 24, but some guys are up to early 30s. I'd prefer some slightly older guys, but there's a good choice here. They have a fair few guys from outside the USA including some uncut guys which is unusual for a US site and goes well with the theme.
Technical wise the site is pretty impressive. I found downloads blisteringly fast - on average at least 2 - 3 times faster than I average on other sites. This is probably due to the fact that you cannot do multiple downloads, manually or with a download manager - kind of a shame but it does mean super-fast downloads. The way they enforce it can be irritating though - you can browse back from the download page to the last page of scenes/models you were on, but it won't then let you go to any other page until your download is finished.
They offer MP4 files in HD (1280x720 @ 8000k) and regular (720x480 @ 2000k), and WMV files though these are 720x480 only. I downloaded all three of one video to compare and was impressed with the quality of the smaller files, and as the HD ones are big (often up to 1GB in size) I stuck with those. I found the MP4 to be subjectively slightly sharper. In-browser streaming is also available (flash-based) at 640x360 and I found it acceptable though not super-fast.
I was initially minded to score this site in the 90s as I was impressed with the video quality, concept of site and fast download speeds.
However a few little niggles made me decide to downgrade it somewhat. I used their support form to e-mail a suggestion but I was ignored despite including my e-mail - same as when I couldn't access the site for a few hours and e-mailed their support address. On a related note, they let you comment on scenes/models and you can rate them good/bad but they don't ever seem to reply to the comments, which is a shame. Their blog doesn't get updated often either.
I appreciated the fast downloading, but I didn't like the way it restricts you from browsing the rest of the site whilst downloading - it took away some of the advantage for me as I want to be able to at least preview other videos whilst I wait for the downloads. There has to be a better way they could do this.
I was also disappointed to find a lot more solo scenes than I expected, though some of these do involve the cameraman getting a BJ which is nice! Sometimes I felt the videos could use a little more imagination - there's rarely any "theme" to them, just straightforward sex in a studio - which may appeal to some but I sometimes like a story/fantasy which they rarely do - and the odd time they did try it, it seemed a bit half-hearted to me. The "XXXtras" they mention are basically desktop wallpapers/calenders which are nicely designed but not really a big bonus, and some "behind the scenes" videos which are - I did enjoy those.
Finally, the variety of "altnernatives", whilst welcome, does mean that some of the duo scenes involved a model I loved but with a model who did absolutely nothing for me. The really out-there emo twinks with make-up, piercings and dyed hair do nothing for me, and they often were teamed with guys I did like. Conversely, some of the guys who just have a few tats or long hair might not be "alternative" enough for some people.
Other minor low points were a "captcha"-type security code to log in every time, poor searching (there's no proper search function as such, and the use of niche cloud tags didn't really make up for it), and the fact you can't download models interviews to keep - a real shame as I love them and find them sexy, and this is the only site I've seen that doesn't allow downloads of them.
Overall this is a site with a great concept well-executed with good choice of files and fast downloads, but the single-download-only restrictions, poor support and feedback and poor search function holds it back a little.
I'll probably rejoin in future, but the one update a week won't be enough to keep a regular member.
*Newbie reviews and ratings don't count toward a site's overall score/rank until the user reaches the Rookie status level (5 points). This rule is needed to help prevent fake (or heavily biased) profiles and reviews.
Protecting Minors We are strong supporters of RTA and ICRA, two of the most recognized self labeling organizations. Our site is properly labeled to assist in the protection of minors accessing inappopriate content. For information about filtering tools, check this site.
DISCLAIMER: ALL MODELS APPEARING ON THIS WEBSITE ARE 18 YEARS OR OLDER.
To report child pornography, go directly to ASACP! We're proud to be a corporate sponsor.
Have concerns or questions about porn addiction? We recommend this helpful resource.
