First reaching public attention in 2014, Popcorn Time project brought a revolutionary way for us to be able to watch live streams of (mostly) movies and TV-shows through a very convenient and simple interface.
To those who are unacquainted with it, the project makes use of the BitTorrent protocol in order to gain maximum download speed while at the same time playing the downloaded media even prior to the download being complete.
The project success brought to that many forks were made, including ones for Kodi – Quasar is one of the most prominent examples – and also, a fork specifically for adults.
On the other hand though, its success also brought to a few, less desirable outcomes and disputes which caused the official developers to publish the following guide-map.
Popcorn Time evolution graph
3rd Resurrection
Since its inception the project known a couple of downfalls, having the site completely removed and its developers facing lawsuit by the MPAA, until finally being resurrected once again, for the 3rd time, in late February of this year (2016).
Although rising up from the dead on February however, the project still faced a few obstacles on its way to become fully operational once more.
The sources the project was relying on, YIFY torrents for instance, had also changed a few things as well, thus although being back and running one of its hallmark features still wasn’t functioning properly.
Furthermore, as a result of the lawsuit the project’s team also diminished and moved to a new development format they call “resilience-driven development” which means less active development.
But don’t worry, some of the devs who left the project are cooking a special surprise for us, keep reading.
Nevertheless, as time passed by the project started to get back on its feet and lately being stabilized / production ready.
A Glimpse To The Future & Download
Although much of Popcorn Time developers have left the project, they didn’t exactly stopped developing.
In fact, they actually jumped ship and moved to a new project they call “Butter” upon which current versions of Popcorn Time are based on.
Butter is a new take on Popcorn Time with the aim to create a completely legal base which other applications can use to provide streaming functionality.
As such, it’s also based on BitTorrent protocol yet, unlike Popcorn Time, Butter comes with a different content source containing only free media by default.
Butter preview
At the moment, Butter doesn’t have official download builds yet, although it’s possible to compile it from source.
Readers who are interested in more software of that kind are also recommended to check out Stremio which provides similar functionality and cross-platform builds as well.
