Kodi: All Streaming Content, All the Time
If you haven’t heard about Kodi (aka Xbox Media Center, in its previous incarnation) by now, then you are in for a treat! We promise you at the end of this article that you’ll be geared up and ready to download this great piece of software that not only acts as a media player, but can bring you streaming content from almost anywhere, including live sports, movies, and podcasts, all in the one place.
Multi-device and multi-platform, Kodi was designed with usability in mind and is free for everyone to get in on the action – consumers and third party developers alike!
Check this out, it shows how awesome Kodi is!
To learn how to install Kodi on your PC or Mac the click here.
What is Kodi?
Kodi is the bastard child of Xbox Media Center (XBMC) – a software application originally designed by a homebrew team to run on the Xbox, which presents a media catalogue to the viewer via your big screen TV.
Morphing beyond the bounds of its Xbox hardware jail, it is now a software that can be installed on a whole range of different devices, such as your PC, Apple TV, Samsung Galaxy, or even Raspberry Pi if you want to get a little bit weird. You’re also able to buy dedicated media boxes with Kodi already set up on it if you wish! Apple devices need to jailbroken to come along to party, as usual, as Apple doesn’t like to play well with others.
Kodi itself is open source, it’s free, and it works across a range of operating systems, making it a go anywhere type of software. It’s designed to be connected up to your TV (or projector!) so you can browse and play different media – like an app for your TV that organizes all your media.
To learn how to install Kodi on your PC or Mac the click here.
To learn how to get Kodi on a media box like Matrixom G-Box, click here.
How to connect Kodi to your TV
To connect, you either cast from your device over Wi-Fi (generally with a dongle unless you’ve got a new fancy TV), or connect via an HDMI (or VGA, etc.) cable between your device and your TV.
You’re then able to bring up the Kodi interface on your TV and browse around on it via your remote control. There’s always the option to just use it stand-alone on your computer, tablet, or phone too.
Ok, so that’s the basics, I can play media files, what else can I do?
Wait, wait, wait, hold up just a minute there! Sure you can play your own media files from local (or network) storage, but you can also stream stuff directly from the internet – that means podcasts, music, videos, and, yes, even movies.
It plays all common formats so you never need to worry about downloading the right version of a file, too.
Where Kodi gains its strength
The beauty of Kodi isn’t in the platform itself; however, it’s in what everyone else brings to the table. Much like your phone, you can add various add-ons to Kodi, in the style of apps, which are put together by third party providers so that you can use their services.
There are more different categories of add-ons than you can shake a stick at, with the sanctioned list contained in Kodi’s official repository, including video add-ons, games, skins, programs, weather apps, lyrics, and screensavers.
Here you can find video apps such as the Cooking Channel, the Hallmark Channel, LiveLeak, NBA League Pass, and TED Talks.
However, some of the most popular apps are not available via the official Kodi repository due to grey areas of the law.
The add-ons not in the official repo
While you can get all the Kodi sanctioned apps in their official repo, most people are going to want to be able to do some really cool stuff with their TV – like grab Netflix through Kodi, and stream pirated content. The legalities of doing these sorts of things vary from region to region so ensure to stay on top of the law in your given hood.
These non-sanctioned add-ons have also not been given the tick of approval by the Kodi team, in case you were wondering. This means that you can get malicious code injections, viruses, etc., if you do choose to download them and aren’t discriminating about which add-ons you download.
That being said, it opens you up to a whole new world of possibilities. The most popular non-sanctioned add-ons at this time are Exodus, which not only lets you watch movies and TV shows for free but also integrates with IMDB, keeps track of what you’ve been watching, and has a slick UI to boot. Castaway is an awesome sports streaming add-on which combines sports from multiple different sites to give you great sport content including match replays, and then you’ve even got more obscure things like KissAnime which brings you a range of high definition anime movies and shows direct to your TV.
Really, when it comes to these sorts of add-ons, you can find just about anything that you like!
Protect your neck
If you are in the grey area of the law in operation to your Kodi use, or just want to make sure that no one is snooping on you, then it’s a good course of action to get yourself a VPN – if you haven’t already.
A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, obscures network traffic from and to your device. Any snoopers are only able to see the traffic going into and out of the VPN node (which will be combined with data from many other different people), and won’t be able to see the end point i.e. your home network address!
With public eavesdropping becoming more and more prevalent, especially from the authorities, protecting your information is more important than ever.
Find the best VPN’s for streaming on the home page or click here.
Bottom line? Kodi is awesome. Kodi is kickass. If you haven’t downloaded it yet – do it now! One copy for your laptop and one copy for your phone. You’ll never need another streaming player again; you’ll be able to get everything in the one place.
If you’re going to get Kodi, however, make sure that you use a VPN in combination with your hardware and software to give you the best protection around.
I have a purchased media box and now want to operate the box with the protection of a VPN. How do I provide VPN protection and what must I do to protect my privacy while using the box?
The easiest is to use a VPN router. Then you connect your TV to your VPN router WiFi connection or ethernet. I have found that the TV’s built-in wifi receiver can be a bit slow for streaming so I always connect my Smart TV with an ethernet cable to my VPN router and away you go. https://topvpnsoftware.com/the-best-wifi-vpn-routers/
This will make your Media box have a permanent encrypted connection so you can stream with peace of mind.
You can also tether the internet connection from your PC, Tablet or smart phone that is connected to your VPN. This will eliminate the need for a VPN Router but more of an inconvenience.
I need to know if there is a VPN that I can use inside of my current city. The type of work the I currently do requires location services to be used/activated. Awaiting your most urgent response.
Deb
Hi Deb.
There are so many VPNs for that.
IPVanish is great.
Try it.
I just asked you a question regarding VPN bring location in my current City because I have to turn on my location services for work. Usually, I keep my location off unless I have to turn it on for work. Awaiting your most urgent response.
P.S. I didn’t put a good email in the last message because I wasn’t sure if it was going to be advertised on the page.
Thanks,
Deb
Thanks for the comment Deborah.
Glad we could help.