Pirate Kodi Add-Ons Gain Massive Popularity

[Batu69]

Streaming piracy is on the rise with the popular media center Kodi at the center of attention. While Kodi itself is a neutral platform, millions of people use third-party add-ons to turn it into the ultimate pirate machine. In less than a year, the leading add-on repository has seen the number of unique users double, which may be just the beginning.

 

Slowly but steadily piracy has moved away from downloads to streaming. According to recent estimates, streaming services are already more popular than torrent sites, a trend that seems hard to stop.

 

One factor that plays a major role in this shift is ease of use. Aside from having movie and TV-shows instantly available, it’s also easier to stream content on a regular TV, through Kodi powered applications or set-top boxes for example. While Kodi itself is a neutral platform, there are lots of add-ons available that turn in into a pirate’s heaven.

 

TVAddons is of the largest repositories of these plugins. The site, which also distributes FreeTelly, a custom pre-loaded version of Kodi for the PC and Mac, is the go-to destination for those who want to upgrade their Kodi experience.

 

TorrentFreak spoke to TVAddons’ Eleazar, who informs us that the recent growth in popularity hasn’t gone unnoticed.

While the site doesn’t keep any in-depth statistics for privacy reasons, they do know how many active Kodi users access their add-ons because of the update requests they receive. These numbers show a sharp increase.

 

December last year, TVAddons received 2.8 million unique calls to their update server per day, and over 13 million for the entire month. Today, these numbers have doubled to a rough average of 5.6 million per day and 24.7 million a month.

 

This means that every 24 hours more than five million Kodi-boxes with their add-ons are online, checking for updates.

 

TVAddons update traffic
 

 

According to Eleazar, the convenience of Kodi is one of the main drivers for this growth. Compared to many torrent and streaming sites, the clean interface is a breath of fresh air.

“It makes the streaming process far simpler and more enjoyable than visiting sketchy ad-ridden sites, or using torrent-based services like Popcorn Time that end up resulting in hundreds of thousands of people receiving legal fines,” Eleazar says.

 

“Anyone who uses Kodi on a regular basis considers it a life changer, bringing more entertainment to their home than they ever thought possible,” he adds.

Of course, pirates are not the only ones who’ve been watching the rise of Kodi’s pirate add-ons. The entertainment industry and law enforcement are keeping a close eye on the situation as well.

 

Several sellers of pre-loaded Kodi boxes have been raided, with some risking serious prison time. And just last week the UK Intellectual Property Office described pirate boxes as a growing threat.

 

The makers of Kodi are not happy with these developments. They clearly want to distance themselves from anything piracy related, blaming the add-on makers and distributors. TVAddons, however, doesn’t believe that it’s breaking the law.

 

“Technically we’re not doing anything wrong, we don’t encourage users to distribute pirated content like torrent apps do, nor do we have anything to do with the content whatsoever.”

 

“We’re just providing code that ‘can’ be used to scrape websites, the content of those sites has nothing to do with us,” Eleazar adds.

Nevertheless, TVAddons has taken various preventive measures to ensure the continuation of its operation, such as regularly moving their servers. In addition, they have several policies in place to preserve the privacy of add-on developers and users.

 

TVAddons also make it clear that they are strongly against the sale of preloaded hardware devices and paid services. They feel it “dumbs” down the community and causes users to feel that they owe them something, since they paid for it.

 

Thus far TVAddons hasn’t seen any public complaints from the industry that target their service. So, instead of focusing on the negative, they’re putting their efforts into improving what they have to offer – more convenient streaming tools and better add-ons.

 

TorrentFreak

[Cerberus]

I cant find any blank oem android boxes on the net.  They all come from China with preinstalled Kodi image.  Customers dont have a choice unless they purchase a mini pc which is the best bet for performance.  Android boxes use low end processors and they dont have enough or fast enough ram.  Most re-sellers dont create their own image, just up the price. 

 

Without third party addons, kodi would not be crap. 

[I4rg£8all8ag]

You can't find a blank android box on the net...  Seriously 

[steven36]

12 hours ago, Cerberus said:

I cant find any blank oem android boxes on the net. 

The problem  with not installing  you're own software when  buying Android boxes is you cant trust those  vendors not to put a easy to back door Linux kernel in them .

Allwinner from China  was doing just that .

http://thehackernews.com/2016/05/android-kernal-exploit.html

The biggest problem  in general with Android is the fact  is many come  with a outdated Linux kernel  and bad firmware and the vendors  don't supply no updates  or very little updates .  Its  a security  risk..   I would never use one of these Android boxes   because of this. Also there's a 30% hardware failure rate in the 1st year if buying  cheap boxes from china .   They have the security of wet toilet  paper .

 

• Quote

   

  • Kodi Pre-Loaded Android TV Boxes and Amazon Fire TV Sticks: The official Kodi blog explained, in length, why these Kodi loaded boxes can be unsafe. These TV boxes come with Kodi installed on them. The issue here is that some sellers fill them with broken add-ons that might not work, or even worse, leave you open to numerous security exploits.

  , in length, why these Kodi loaded boxes can be unsafe. These TV boxes come with Kodi installed on them. The issue here is that some sellers fill them with broken add-ons that might not work, or even worse, leave you open to numerous security exploits.

  https://thevpn.guru/is-kodi-legal-safe-vpn-privacy-security/

   

I don't  even trust a computer that comes  with OEM  Linux or Windows  not too be back doored ether  its best too clean reformat them  with software from the DEVs   .  you remember  what Lenvo  did? I

 

I never a been fan of of kodi  because i watch videos via  my pc in 1080p  i have 4 pcs in my computer room . There's plenty of sites that have anything i want  were i can stream trough MPV with Youtube-dl   drm and browser free ,I don't  have too fool with buying units  downloading addons .  etc its a lot less hassle   Ive not watched media on a TV since 2006 unless  im not home and i have satellite 300 channels of shit  and nothing on.  I can  sign in  to it online and watch all kinds of stuff legal  on the internet  as well,  lol .  Too each there own i guess. .

 

[Cerberus]

I fully agree with you.  Was looking into a mini pc which runs about 118 USD.  Think I might go this direction.  The android boxes really cant do 4k let alone 1080p.  My lappy runs kodi so much better thus the reasoning behind me looking into mini pc's.  Yes, there are lots of sites out there that do HD quality streams so users have options.  I dont like android because all your apps run in the background.  If you force close they come back when rebooted.  This is bad for resource management.  I still like kodi for a all in one media center.  Its better then windows media center.  lol  Just my two cents on the subject.  Take care steven36. 

[magician369]

For movies and tv shows Kodi is perfect. However for live Tvs and especially sports.Kodi sucks 60% of the time (I mean the addons not Kodi itself) they are not reliable, low quality and alwayes buffering. You also have to stay close to the news because each 1 month or so you have to rebuild 50% of your outdated-no longer works addons library.

Sent from my SM-N7505 using Tapatalk

[Cerberus]

The reason is because devs dont have enough money for high end servers with lots of bandwidth thus when a sporting event it on, the server gets slammed.  Ppl need to keep in mind you get what you pay for.  If addon is free and everyone is using it, there will always be buffering.  Devs do this for fun mostly, some charge but I understand why.  Servers cost money and for good servers with high end bandwidth, you need lots of money for those.  Not kodi's fault or even devs, end users want everything for free and that isnt the case with IPTV.  My two cents again.  lol

 

Note:  What server is going to allow pirated iptv streams?  NONE!  lol

 

15 hours ago, I4rg£8all8ag said:

You can't find a blank android box on the net...  Seriously 

Nope, they all come from China with kodi within their image which is over 3 years old.  Android boxes are not made for Kodi anyways.  Grab a mini pc and you will be alot happier, trust me.