You remember Popcorn Time, the Netflix for torrents that suffered a self-inflicted death? Well, it never really died. The open source project lives on in the form of a forked app version, available for download for Mac, Windows and Linux. Today, it comes to Android.
The app is a faithful reproduction of the original streaming website: Pick from a curated set of recent titles or search the catalogue, then after a brief buffering period, the app streams like it was any other streaming service, which, of course, it’s not. It’s simply piecing together the torrent from peers and ensuring what’s directly ahead is loaded. The main difference from the original service is that, you know, it’s an open-source app, so it can’t ever really be killed except by some kind of ISP interference with the BitTorrent protocol.
Technically speaking, this might not be legal, so use Popcorn Time at your own risk. Google didn’t detect anything malicious in the build I installed, but there are some concerns the app’s devs might be up to no good. But Popcorn Time is also awesome, so maybe the risk is worth it. [Google Play]