Available on Windows

The 36th most popular file sharer on Windows

Kontiki was a digital media distribution technology company, founded in 2000 and acquired by VeriSign in 2006. Kontiki's peer-to-peer software, the Kontiki Delivery Manager provides the basis of many of the UK's video on demand services, including Sky Anytime, 4od, and the BBC iPlayer. Kontiki works using peer to peer technology. Rather than the user downloading the television program from a central server the users download from each other. This may be why Kontiki reseller ioko claim that using Kontiki "reduces IT & network costs by 70%-90%" The Kontiki client continues to run when a user closes the provider's application and will continue to share the user's downloaded content with other users on the network, using up the user's bandwidth without notifying them (except for the iPlayer). This can be particularly troublesome for users with Broadband connections that include a capped monthly download limit. To shut down KService after the provider's program has been closed, the command 'net stop kservice' can be entered into the "Run" dialog accessed from the Windows Start menu.
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  • monkeynutsami expert
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    necessary evil for things like iPlayer which I love

  • Samuel overlord
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    yes

  • alex sweeting expert
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    it actually is a brilliant application, i dont know what the internet was like before BBC iPlayer and 4oD!

  • mfsinc fanatic
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    Bandwidth hog, comes with iPlayer and many other video on demand services. Exists to send downloaded video back out via P2P.

    Easy to stop (for iplayer at least) without messing up the program.

    Go into C:\Program Files\Kontiki
    make 2 new batch files

    start.bat

    @ECHO OFF
    ECHO
    NET START "Kservice"
    start kdx
    start iplayer

    stop.bat

    @ECHO OFF
    ECHO
    NET STOP "Kservice"

    and finaly a shortcut called "kdx", exactly like this:

    "C:\Program Files\Kontiki\KHost.exe" -all"

    make desktop shortcuts for each batch file, then use start.bat to start iplayer instead of the main shortcut. use stop.bat to stop the bandwidth hoggage after you have downloaded the program :)

  • FreeTown fanatic

    I don't even remember getting this, but its time to get rid of it

  • richbradshaw fanatic
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    Sneaks on when you use 4OD or iPlayer offline version. Not malware, but I don't like having extra services that use bandwidth and set up a web server with out my permission.

  • Jimbiscuits expert

    I think I used this when I used 4oD? I must have. :S

  • Rioter overlord

    This software is really clunky and uses a fair bit of system resources. It could really have been designed much better than it currently is. However it does support various On-Demand systems such as BBC iPlayer download manager, which does work quite well when it is not hogging resources and frozen. It also supports and uses the P2P protocol, encouraging legal P2P use.

  • Chris expert
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    Poorly designed, and flawed.

  • scottm fanatic

    I guess this is sky anytime?

  • giloi2008 devotee
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    ok, but hell when it goes wrong or your want to get rid of it. and no user interface?!? what were they thinking?

  • blake11 novice
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    Not malware - used with BBC iplayer, 4oD and other IPTV programs to download videos peer to peer.

  • godasse devotee
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    I use this to download monthly or weekly magazines, etc. Just imagine that Time Magazine or Mojo Magazine would be delivered straight to your laptop as soon as they are released for a lower price than the paper version. As I now live in China, it's obviously a godsent application.

  • app103 fanatic
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    This is also used with AOL's Hi-Q Video.

    I recently had the displeasure of communicating with AOL's tech support about removal if this Kontiki software from my system, after I uninstalled Hi-Q Video but this part of it failed to uninstall along with it.

    It would launch itself whenever it felt like it, numerous times a day, and use 50% or more of my CPU, bringing my entire system to a crawl.

    To make a long story short, AOL told me to contact Microsoft if I wanted this off my PC, since it runs as a service and they had no clue how to remove it. How crazy is that?

    Kontike did provide a removal tool at one time, and there was a link to it on the AOL site. Unfortunately that link now redirects to Verisign and the page does not contain a removal tool, instructions, nor any mention of the Kontiki software.

    Considering my experiences with this, and the experiences of others, I would classify this software and anything that uses it as malware.

    Beware!

  • martin enthusiast
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    The Kontiki P2P engine is used by several VOD services, including the BBC and Channel 4 in the UK. This service adds itself to your startup group without any notification. It hogs bandwidth and there is no settings in the associated player GUI to throttle the bandwidth usage (you can do this with a third-party app like Netlimiter).
    Overall, I have to say this is a poorly designed piece of software.

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Website: verisign.com/products-...
Developer: Kontiki Inc.
Version: 5.43.811.211
Rating: Features:
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Usage: 3 weeks, 6 days, 11 hours, 20 minutes and 47 seconds
Usage since: 02 May 2007
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Popularity over the last 30 days (?)

Kontiki Deliv... vs.

Rank: #1674

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