TechnologyThe Verge•1 min read•10/24/2026 (2h ago)

Abandoned Popcorn Time apps had to be disabled to prevent a zombie army

Abandoned Popcorn Time apps had to be disabled to prevent a zombie army
60-Word AI Digest

Remember Popcorn Time, the app that served as an easy-to-use front end for streaming torrents of movies and TV shows? Development of the MPAA's least-favorite app of the 2010s has been abandoned for years, but the "Netflix of Piracy" software is still installed on millions of devices that are just waiting to join a bot army....

Key Takeaways

  • Remember Popcorn Time, the app that served as an easy-to-use front end for streaming torrents of movies and TV shows?
  • Development of the MPAA's least-favorite app of the 2010s has been abandoned for years, but the "Netflix of Piracy" software is still installed on millions of devices that are just waiting to join a bot army.
  • Researchers at Eye Security found the updater for a Popcorn Time fork called "Time4Popcorn" still running on tons of Windows, macOS, and Android devices located around the world, phoning home to now-abandoned web domains over unencrypted HTTP and running an outdated, insecure version of Chrome.

Remember Popcorn Time, the app that served as an easy-to-use front end for streaming torrents of movies and TV shows? Development of the MPAA's least-favorite app of the 2010s has been abandoned for years, but the "Netflix of Piracy" software is still installed on millions of devices that are just waiting to join a bot army. Researchers at Eye Security found the updater for a Popcorn Time fork called "Time4Popcorn" still running on tons of Windows, macOS, and Android devices located around the world, phoning home to now-abandoned web domains over unencrypted HTTP and running an outdated, insecure version of Chrome. Eye Security's Niels Teus … Read the full story at The Verge.

Original Publisher Attribution

This summary was curated from The Verge.

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Abandoned Popcorn Time apps had to be disabled to prevent a zombie army — Loop60