Showbox not working: Movie and TV streaming app down amid suggestions it's been deleted
Showbox, an app that offers a free way to watch the latest films and TV shows, appears to have broken.
And some have suggested that the mysterious app could have shut down entirely, never to return.
People trying to open the mysterious – and potentially illegal-to-use – app are simply seeing a message that the app has broken and cannot be accessed.
We'll tell you what's true. You can form your own view.From 15p €0.18 $0.18 USD 0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.
Subscribe now leftCreated with Sketch. rightCreated with Sketch. 1/25 Google turns 21Google celebrates its 21st birthday on September 27. The The search engine was founded in September 1998 by two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their dormitories at California's Stanford University. Page and Brin chose the name google as it recalled the mathematic term 'googol', meaning 10 raised to the power of 100
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13/25Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea
Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty
14/25Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea
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15/25The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company
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16/25Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea
Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty
17/25Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi
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18/25Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session
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19/25A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
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21/25A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China
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24/25A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London
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25/25A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv
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Instead, they see a message reading: "Connection error. Check your internet connection!"
As such, there appears to be a problem with the servers used to deliver the free, Netflix-style subscription have broken. There has been no clear suggestion whether that will be permanent or not.
Read moreShowbox could only be accessed through the company's website, where it was possible to download an "apk" file onto an Android phone and then load up the app or use it on their PC. That download is still online, but the app will not work once it is removed.
A host of other sites are offering downloads of the app, but cannot be verified. It is possible those downloads are ways of exploiting the people trying to download them and attack their phones.
Like other apps before it such as Popcorn Time, Showbox appears to be sharing videos that it does not necessarily have the rights to but presenting them in a far easier to use way than illegal downloading tools such as torrents.
Popcorn Time was shut down after intense pressure from Hollywood over its sharing of videos. But it has repeatedly popped back up at different addresses.