Popcorn Time Now in a Browser Near You

Popular torrent video streaming service Popcorn Time no longer needs to be installed on your phone or PC, and can now run through a browser window. All you have to do is visit the PopcornInYourBrowser.net website and click on a film to start watching.

Popcorn Time first released around a year ago, and it was one of the most polished ways to watch a TV show. Instead of bothering with a Torrent client and then managing a media player, Popcorn Time combined all the functions together and left you with a simple interface which let you watch anything with just a click. It was also, unfortunately, illegal but this small project did a better job of the user experience than most legal services.

(Also see: To pay or steal - How piracy is offering a better TV and movie viewing experience)

The project was shut down almost as quickly as it started, but other copies popped up, and PopcornTime.io has become the de facto home of the platform. Here, you can download the client for Windows, Mac, Linux, or Android. Features like downloads, Chromecast support, and AirPlay streaming have been added in the recent past.

While iOS users had to jailbreak to install Popcorn Time on their devices, a workaround was found for that. Now though, with PopcornInYourBrowser, you don't even need an app to watch a video. We tried it on an iPad and an Android phone, and both worked perfectly. And of course, since you can cast a tab from your browser using either AirPlay or Chromecast, mirroring the video on your big screen is also easy. The only feature that's missing is the ability to download movies for later.

With that said, the interface is not as polished or easy to use as the regular client. Instead of a grid of all the most popular films and TV shows, the browser version provides a list of just a few films, and a search bar. There aren't any TV shows to watch as yet, and you can't really browse for films - you have to know what you want to watch - but these are relatively minor limitations, and the ease with which you can start watching a movie like this is pretty much unmatched.

The browser version of Popcorn Time was made as a mashup of YTS (YIFY Torrents) - which is also the database that the Popcorn Time client draws on - and Coinado.io, which is a remote torrenting service. The result is a streaming service that works flawlessly, though how long that's going to be the case before the authorities clamp down on it is another matter.