The famous Popcorn Time app that allows people to stream movies and TV shows directly from torrents is back after the development was suspended for a few weeks.

Popcorn Time was having a great run, but MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and other forces managed to slow it down. First of all, a couple of prominent developers were identified on Reddit, and they had to stop any kind of work on the Popcorn Time client. A number of servers were also brought down, and Popcorn Time took a hit.

The client sits in a rather gray legal area, which is something that people rely on. In some countries, the use of Popcorn Time is not illegal, in others it’s unclear, and in places like the United States, it is forbidden.

The application went under the radar for a long time, but it definitely got a lot of attention when the developers announced that it would also work in a browser. It already had support for PC, Mac OS X, and Linux, and it had an interface that put any kind of legal competition to shame.

Popcorn Time is back

From the looks of it, the community is now ready to take on the development role, and the identity of the developers will be kept secret. They are also working on a decentralized way of maintaining the application. The domain was also changed, which now says that it’s a community edition.

“2 guys who were caught by Brein (Protection Rights Entertainment Industry Netherland). They had to delete all their accounts, links and stop working on the community version immediately. This will not stop us in any way, but we will not credit any of the people involved to protect them. We have replaced some of the links including working installers with the fix already applied for Windows/Mac/Linux,” a user wrote in a Reddit topic.

In the same Reddit topic, the new developers also posted how to fix the current installation of Popcorn Time for people who don’t want to download the app again. Also, it’s highly recommended that you use a VPN with Popcorn time.

Update: There is another version of Popcorn Time available right now, with details in the subreddit /popcorntime. That version integrates trojans and malware, as seen in this report.

All links regarding the /popcorntime version have been removed from the article.