Google's HDTV dongle, called Chromecast, launched in the U.S. in early Fall, 2013, and has been gaining popularity, and apps, ever since. Now that Chromecast is launching in the U.K., Canada, and several European nations, for a similarly low cost, it's time for a roundup of the best Chromecast video apps... so far.

There are a couple of caveats for this list:

A lot of Chromecast support is still in beta -- heck, even Google labels its own Chrome extension for Chromecast as "beta," so expect bumps in the road.

Also, a lot of Chromecast apps are only currently available in some places (in the U.S., everything in this list will work) and for some devices (similarly, Android users are probably fine here, but iPhone users may not have access to everything).

Finally, this is by necessity, a preliminary list. While major apps work reliably, Chromecast is still in experimental phases for most developers -- but that's part of why it's so exciting.

Live Streaming Videos

Of course, there are a few standards for Chromecast that will reliably work cross-platform, no matter what. These include Netflix and YouTube, both of which launched with the Chromecast initially. For iOS, Android, and Chrome, these are solid standbys. For Android, check out the Google Play Movies and TV app too. If you have a subscription to HBO, the eminently popular HBO Go app is available for iOS and Android.

But there are other options for streaming videos, including the Google Cast tool for Chrome browsers. This is perhaps the most important and versatile streaming app, because anything you can watch on your browser, you can cast to the big screen.

You do this by clicking the "cast" icon to the right of the URL field and clicking "cast this tab." However, check the settings in that menu to the lowest possible resolution, because this option is still not fully ready for primetime.

Local Media Playback

One of the biggest gripes about Chromecast in its first six months or so was that there was no option to cast your locally-based files onto the big screen. That changed as soon as Google published developer tools for Chromecast this year. Now there are a lot of apps for that, but only some of them are good.

For playback directly from your local Android device (again, sorry iOS), the original AllCast is back. It costs $5 to actually be useful, but after that, you'll be casting videos, photos, or music from your tablet or phone in no time!

A lot of people have the vast majority of media files on their computers, and might not want to transfer them to an Android device every time they want to cast a movie. There's a solution for them in a (free!) Chrome app called Videostream.

It's a basic browser app that works through the Google Cast extension, but it is far more reliable and supports subtitles. Technically, you can drag a movie into a Chrome tab and most of the time it will cast with only some latency, but why bother when Videostream does it better. For offline video casting, still from your Chrome browser, try the (currently clunkier) "LocalChromecast Player" Chrome app.

Streaming Local Media

Perhaps the best media center app and cloud service, Plex, recently announced it was making its support for Chromecast free for all users, even without a premium subscription.

It will cost $5 for the app and you have to sign up for a free account, but after that, you can upload movies, music, photos, and pretty much any other media for instant Chromecast playback from the Plex cloud -- from any device, including iOS and Android.

There are a lot of reasons to use Plex for your video library: Plex keeps your media organized and it's automatic backup. It keeps track of your progress so if you pause your videos, you can pick up where you left off. You can create instant queues, share with friends, and access your media on Android, iOS, and Windows phone -- not to mention Windows, Mac, and Linux apps. And Plex can stream to other devices besides Chromecast, including some Samsung TVs, Roku, Xbox 360, and Google TV (if you still have one of those dinosaurs).

If you're willing to pay, Plex can connect to nearly any other cloud you have and organize those media files for playback too, and you can select some files for future playback from devices if you're planning on being disconnected from the internet.

More to Come

Right now, there's not much competition for Plex's all-around easy-to-use features, but don't think it has the market cornered yet. There are lots of services and apps adding Chromecast support every week, so the next list of the best video apps for Chromecast might be completely different.

What an exciting time to be a couch potato.