Kodi 17.4 Release Candidate 1 Now Available To Download

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Kodi has been in the news quite a bit lately. Well, Kodi hasn’t necessarily been the focus but the addons used by some Kodi users are in the news. For example, TVAddons went on a brief hiatus while a legal case has been building in Canada. Other addon creators have been sued or shut down to hopefully avoid being sued. Still, Kodi continues on strong. And now, the newest version, Kodi 17.4 Release Candidate 1 is available for download. This is like a beta of a new version of Kodi and largely just introduces bug fixes. Kodi announced the release on their own website so let’s dive in and see what users can expect.

Right off the top of their announcement post, the Kodi team confirms that they are already working on v18. That means a major update to Kodi may not be far away. Therefore, the Kodi 17.4 Release Candidate 1 isn’t meant to change the face of Kodi but, rather, simply improve the existing experience with bug fixes. And there are bug fixes galore in this version. You can see the entire list of bug fixes on the Kodi website. There are many crash improvements, keyboard improvements, and playback improvements. All in all, Kodi should be a much more stable, useful product with Kodi 17.4 Release Candidate 1.

Since there are no new features to discuss in this version of Kodi, let’s look ahead to what we may see when v18 finally rolls around. The upcoming update to Kodi has been named “Leia” in honor of the late Carrie Fisher.

One of the big focuses for v18 will be Android TV. Kodi is incredibly popular among Android TV users so it makes sense that they would want their software working well with Android TV devices. Even Kodi 17.4 Release Candidate 1 has some improvements on Android like reduced crashing. However, v18 will take everything to a whole new level with new features like voice search and suggested content right on the homescreen; simlar to what you see with Netflix and other popular apps.

Windows and Xbox users will also see some big changes in v18. There is a 64 bit Windows version of Kodi in the works. This means that Kodi will be able to user more than 4GB of RAM which should help speed up the program on machines with RAM to spare. There is also talk that Kodi could be coming to the Xbox One thanks to the Universal Windows Program. It’s hard to say if that portion of v18 will be ready at launch but we can all certainly hope so.

Kodi would also like to attract some new, legal streaming options to show off on their platform. Kodi has a reputation as being a program used exclusively for pirating. The reality is that Kodi can do a lot more than illegal streaming and they want to show that off. Don’t be surprised to see more integration with legal streaming apps in the upcoming v18 update.

That’s just a taste of what’s to come. We may see v18 before the end of the year but, until then, Kodi 17.4 Release Candidate 1 is the newest version we have. It’s stable and still the Kodi you know and love. If you want to download the latest version, you can grab it right from Kodi’s download page here. Check out all the bug fixes for yourself! Okay… It’s not the most exciting release in the tech world these days. Still, avid users of Kodi will be happy to see the team is still supporting v17 while also working on v18 which should introduce a number of new features. Are you a user of Kodi? Does the loss of some big addons change anything for you or will you be updating to the latest version and continuing to enjoy Kodi? Let us know!

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