Netflix's Biggest Competitor: Popcorn Time

Christina Drill
March 12, 2014

Wow. Let me introduce you to Popcorn Time, an app currently in Beta that allows you to watch movies instantly. Popcorn Time streams movies from Torrents, and promotes a gigantic library filled with every movie you could ever want to watch. And they have the current blockbusters too-- Frozen, American Hustle, and Gravity are all available for streaming through the site as we speak.

Unlike some torrent applications, Popcorn Time allows you to stream the movie as you are downloading it. Also, it serves as a middleman between you and all the hassle involved in trying to figure out which Torrents are safe to download. Literally, all you have to do is search for the movie you want to watch, click "play," and watch it. Also, if we haven't mentioned yet: Popcorn Time is totally free.

There is a disclaimer on the website and again on the app warning that it may be illegal to download copyrighted material in your country. A lot of the movies in Popcorn Time's library are free domain, but a lot of them are still definitely under copyright, so use carefully-- remember, depends on what you're watching, but what you're downloading might not be legal.

The cool thing about Popcorn Time (I mean, another cool thing) is that there are no ads on the site and the founders make no profit off of it at all. They also don't communicate with torrent hosts personally, so the founders don't imagine they will be in any legal trouble anytime soon. Sure, the movie industry is probably already up in arms, but what can they do? Popcorn Time was simply built to give movie-lovers and couch potatoes an alternative option to Netflix.It's beyond me how I am ever going to get any work done again.