Cut off one head, and two more will grow. The legend of the Hydra perfectly describes the struggle between the copyright hawks and the programs or services that make it easy to access movies and series on the Internet. After several turbulent weeks and its official disappearance, Popcorn Time is back, seeking vengeance with the help of modified installers that restore the full functionality of the client.
Several people asked me in recent days why Popcorn Time stopped working. I explained that it was a matter of time, and that the program would return one way or another. At the beginning of this month, the MPAA claimed credit for the disappearance of PopcornTime.io as well as the YIFY group and the YTS portal, a move that was definitely felt in the BitTorrent world. What these people apparently fail to understand is that all their victories are temporary, and in the end they lose more ground than they gain. The situation of Popcorn Time automatically triggered a new initiative through the Butter Project, but the community needed less than a month to provide a much more effective solution, and I mean updated installers.
Essentially, these new builds of Popcorn Time (based on the installers that PopcornTime.io offered) use different APIs, replacing YTS with TorrentsAPI, and another custom API focused on series. At the same time, those who have been using Popcorn Time with the VPN.ht service received a direct update to the client, restoring its operation. Existing installations of Popcorn Time can come back to life as long as some patches are applied or configuration files are edited (all downloads and instructions are available in the link at the bottom of the article).
A notable technical detail in the modified installers of Popcorn Time is that three of the available APIs for TV series (the client chooses one randomly) are distributed through the Tor network. According to published information, access to Tor is done using a gateway, so the Tor module has not been implemented in the client. This will undoubtedly make it much harder for the MPAA to catch those responsible, reinforcing the sense of an arms race.
In summary: Popcorn Time is back, and its story is not over.
