Considering all the VPN crackdowns taking place, not to mention cease and desist letters from ISPs, piracy isn’t as risk-free as it used to be. That said, it is a whole lot more convenient than it used to be, thanks to a new plugin called Torrents Time that lets users stream video from The Pirate Bay and others right inside their browser window.
Torrents Time only made its debut last week, but popular torrent site The Pirate Bay has already added support. This isn’t the only site that can use the plugin — any site can, it simply needs to add support via code available on GitHub. A user attempting to stream a torrent for the first time will be prompted to install the plugin, then the video starts playing as soon as enough of it has been downloaded.
As the name suggests, Torrents Time is quite similar to Popcorn Time. The difference is that, at least once the plugin is installed, it can be used with any torrent site that supports it. This makes it somewhat harder to track down and stop, as was the case with Popcorn Time and Popcorn Time Online.
Of course, there is a catch. As with Popcorn Time, Torrents Time users will see a warning that their IP address is exposed, along with an ad for a VPN service, which in this case is built in to the plugin. You can sign up for $2, but this is actually just a three-day trial. For day-to-day use the service will cost you $12 per month or $70 per year.
The VPN service being advertised is Anonymous VPN, which offers an affiliate program that the creators of Torrents Time are surely using. For the time being, this may seem to be just a drop in the bucket, but the creators expect the service to grow quickly.
“We are certain that in no time we’ll be embedded in all torrent sites who care to move on with this evolution,” the Torrents Time team told VentureBeat. “We will allow everybody to watch any movie they wish from torrent sites who embed us, when they want, without having to store someone’s file on their hard disk.”
It likely won’t be long before Torrents Time is the most popular target when it comes to the many government bodies and other organizations looking to stamp out piracy, but as The Pirate Bay has shown, that can be a tricky task.