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Popular Illegal Streaming App Terrarium TV Is Shutting Down This Month (torrentfreak.com)

NitroXenon, the developer of Terrarium TV, announced Monday evening that the infamous streaming service, available for Android users at no charge, is shutting down this month. TorrentFreak reports: Inspired by the simplicity of Popcorn Time, Terrarium TV eschewed the use of torrents as a supply protocol. Instead, the software pulled in content from file-hosting sites in a similar way to Kodi addons, but with an almost non-existent learning curve. Created by a developer who identified as Hong Kong-based Peter Chan (aka NitroXenon), Terrarium TV enjoyed a meteoric rise to stardom over the past couple of years. With only Showbox and a handful of other applications getting anywhere close to its volume of active users, Terrarium TV became the go-to app for Android users looking for a Netflix-style fix.

Now, however, the ride is over. In a notification pushed to Terrarium TV users last night, NitroXenon explained that his days of working on the app are over. "It has always been a great pleasure to work on this project. However, it is time to say goodbye. I am going to shut down Terrarium TV, forever," he wrote. "I know this day will come eventually. I know it would be hard to let go. But it is really time for me to move on to other projects."

24 comments

  1. Why no charge? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did they inject ads instead?

  2. Kodi Streaming is for Casuals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nothing will ever beat a well-curated personal media library hosted with plex or similar. If your seedbox is setup correctly with radarr and you're using a decent tracker, the speed and quality will never be matched by whatever soup du jour kodi addon happens to be popular at the time.

    1. Re:Kodi Streaming is for Casuals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong.

    2. Re: Kodi Streaming is for Casuals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stick your collection of tranny scat porn on IPFS and give the mods a hash, we're WebWolves now.

    3. Re: Kodi Streaming is for Casuals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go on...

  3. Re:REMEMBER by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

    Was he responsible for the systemd vote?

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  4. Re: REMEMBER by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No. He left the Debian project long before systemd.

  5. Tired of working for free? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In other words, nobody paid him anything for the work he was doing, so he decided to do something else. Sounds a bit like some open source projects where everyone wonders why bugs don't get fixed or the documentation is so bad. If you don't pay people to do things (especially unpleasant things), generally they find something better to do.

    1. Re:Tired of working for free? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      more like he's already received threats of legal action (or worse) and has shut down on his own before that happened (perhaps an ultimatum.. 'shut it down.... or else'). it would also explain why the code wasn't set free.. he was told not to release it.

      pure speculation, sure. but is most likely to be what happened.

    2. Re: Tired of working for free? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or a CIA spook.

    3. Re: Tired of working for free? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He collected enough personal data from users I'm sure he made plenty of money.

  6. *Illegal* depends on the jurisdiction by DrYak · · Score: 1

    Streaming for personal isn't necessary illegal in all jurisdiction.

    In lots of jurisdiction, it's only making publicly available/distributing that's punishable if you don't own a license to do so.

    Fetching the content for your own consumption or that of your closest circle of friends and relatives (i.e. still considered private) might be tolerated, and in some jurisdiction even explicitly covered by a tax on empty media.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  7. LOL ... popular? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Judging by the lack of comments in this story, it aint that popular.

    1. Re: LOL ... popular? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google suggested terrarium tv fire stick for me yesterday. I honestly thought it was a terrarium video app for tv like the yule logs at Christmas.

    2. Re: LOL ... popular? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Terrarium was the only app Iâ(TM)ve used since I got my firestick last October. Iâ(TM)ve tried using kodi and mobdro and nothing loads. Iâ(TM)m going to miss it. Now my firestick is useless.

    3. Re: LOL ... popular? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Truth

    4. Re: LOL ... popular? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      teatv is a fair replacement. themoviedb is also ok, but only if you have a bluetooth mouse hooked up.

    5. Re: LOL ... popular? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Terrarium is already back up.

  8. lolwut? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or maybe nobody gives a fuck about free bullshit anymore. At this point you're going out of your way to eat tripe. No thanks.

    1. Re:lolwut? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm paying for Netflix and Prime Video, but still find TerrariumTV better for watching on my phone, so it doesn't necessarily has to do with free bullshit. Sometimes I just want to watch videos in the video app I want instead of thru some proprietary app that either doesn't do popup or crashes every few moments, or have shows disapper on me half way through a season.

    2. Re:lolwut? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fair enough!