Despite its questionable legality, Popcorn Time’s popularity hasn’t diminished much since the original forks launched in 2014. In fact, the name has generated enough interest online that other developers are beginning to borrow the model for their own apps.
Today, we’re going to introduce you to one of them — this is Aurous, the Popcorn Time for music.
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As TorrentFreak reported on Monday, Aurous launched to the public over the weekend, giving Windows, Mac and Linux users access to an app that will allow them to search for and listen to thousands of songs for free.
It has a slick, customizable UI, it’ll support all the music files you already own and you’ll never have to worry about listening to ads between songs just because you aren’t paying a monthly subscription.
Of course, there are some downsides to the Aurous service, starting with the extremely limited selection. TorrentFreak notes that many of the artists you can find on Apple Music and Spotify are missing from Aurous, so don’t expect to replace your current streaming service if you’re accustomed to a massive collection of music.
It’s only an alpha, but the reason that Popcorn Time was able to gain as much traction as it did was because it offered something that Netflix, Hulu and the others couldn’t — a nearly limitless selection of movies and shows that would never expire.
Millions of individuals are happy to pay ~$10 a month for Spotify because they know that the library is only going to grow. Until Aurous and its peers bring something new to the table, they likely won’t attract anywhere near the same number of users as Popcorn Time. But who knows — maybe there’s still a market for free* (*pirated) music after all.
