7 ms·

It would be better if the platforms that wanted DRM just made their own damn desktop apps, just like they make their own iOS apps, Android apps, Roku apps, smar

It would be better if the platforms that wanted DRM just made their own damn desktop apps, just like they make their own iOS apps, Android apps, Roku apps, smart tv apps, etc. There's no reason for them to be embedded in a browser.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mtgx 10y ago
The irony is that Netflix does have a desktop application as well.
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  Not for Linux and I know first had that the Windows Store one is complete garbage because I really wanted it to work. The Hulu one is just as bad.
  - flukus 10y ago
    I've used the windows one a fair bit and would take it over the browser one any day. The desktop one wins for resource usage alone.
    - jasonkostempski 10y ago
      For me, it usually wouldn't start up (some oddball Windows Store error, probably because I don't sign into my machine with a Microsoft ID) and streaming quality was horrible, especially at the beginning, and there was no way to tell it to wait longer for buffering.
- futurix 10y ago
  This is mostly a side effect of their development efforts for Xbox and Windows 10 Mobile.
hsivonen 10y ago
Why would you prefer letting streaming companies have full code execution on you desktop instead of having browsers mediate?
- zanny 10y ago
  I wouldn't, and they knew that. They knew the adoption rates for out-of-browser proprietary content viewers were awful. That is why they dedicated resources to usurp the open web. If Mozilla had fought back, we might have progressed towards the death of the obsolete content model big media wants to keep in place and prevent change in the market. It would have at least been a step in the right direction - instead, the promise of the open Internet was sabotaged, and big media gets to be more "convenient" at its sacrifice.
  - marcoperaza 10y ago
    Or more realistically, if Mozilla had fought back, more people would simply have stopped using Firefox.
    - problems 10y ago
      Yeah, the problem started when people decided installing a browser from an ad agency seemed like a good idea.
      - marcoperaza 10y ago
        Why is reasonable DRM a problem in the first place? I'm paying Netflix $8 a month to watch thousands of movies whenever I want. Being constrained to a large number of devices that take some steps to prevent someone from ripping the movies is a fair tradeoff. It works flawlessly on my computer, on my phone, and on my xbox. The DRM hasn't bothered me once.
        zanny 10y ago
        Because I'm going to immediately argue with you that there is no reasonable DRM. It comes from two ideological positions. One believes that content creators need complete systemic control of what they make - at all costs (that the creator maintains full control no matter how the content is interacted with) - and the other is that content shouldn't be controlled (or that I, as a buyer of content, should control the content I bought), and all real world implementations fall between those extremes. But when it comes to DRM, it should be understandable that plenty of people (myself included) are not willing to allow third party companies to run proprietary code (the drm) on my hardware for the exclusive purpose of preventing me from interacting with data on my own computer (the streamed movie / music). When web browsers start baking in this proprietary functionality, it forces me to look for alternatives to the established open source browsers. If you are content with that relationship with content (heh) providers, then this is not your fight. But at least accept that a lot of us want to own our computers, and proprietary software takes away that right, and DRM is just one of the more visceral forms proprietary software takes where its entire purpose is to impede the users ability to control their computers.
nikcub 10y ago
Because the browser provides a privacy and security sandbox where you can't be fingerprinted and where it is more difficult to turn decoding bugs into remote code execution exploits. Users should have a lot more faith in the protections of a browser over the free-for-all security and privacy nightmare that is desktop computing.
- greenhouse_gas 10y ago
  Who told you it's going to be sandboxed? It's probably going to be a obfuscated binary blob (it has to of it wants to try ensure that nothing is intercepting it) which will try verifying that OS isn't intercepting data.
  - nikcub 10y ago
    Firefox: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1021232 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1021232 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1021235 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1021235 The spec talks about both securing the CDM with Sandboxing and preventing fingerprinting, amongst other security + privacy issues that should be addressed: https://w3c.github.io/encrypted-media/#cdm-security https://w3c.github.io/encrypted-media/#cdm-security https://w3c.github.io/encrypted-media/#privacy-fingerprinting https://w3c.github.io/encrypted-media/#privacy-fingerprintin... the spec also says if the CDN isn't sandboxed then the user needs to be warned and prompted to allow exec: > if a user agent chooses to support a Key System implementation that cannot be sufficiently sandboxed or otherwise secured, the user agent should ensure that users are fully informed and/or give explicit consent before loading or invoking it.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mtgx 10y ago

The irony is that Netflix does have a desktop application as well.

jasonkostempski 10y ago
Not for Linux and I know first had that the Windows Store one is complete garbage because I really wanted it to work. The Hulu one is just as bad.
- flukus 10y ago
  I've used the windows one a fair bit and would take it over the browser one any day. The desktop one wins for resource usage alone.
  - jasonkostempski 10y ago
    For me, it usually wouldn't start up (some oddball Windows Store error, probably because I don't sign into my machine with a Microsoft ID) and streaming quality was horrible, especially at the beginning, and there was no way to tell it to wait longer for buffering.
futurix 10y ago
This is mostly a side effect of their development efforts for Xbox and Windows 10 Mobile.

hsivonen 10y ago

Why would you prefer letting streaming companies have full code execution on you desktop instead of having browsers mediate?

zanny 10y ago
I wouldn't, and they knew that. They knew the adoption rates for out-of-browser proprietary content viewers were awful. That is why they dedicated resources to usurp the open web. If Mozilla had fought back, we might have progressed towards the death of the obsolete content model big media wants to keep in place and prevent change in the market. It would have at least been a step in the right direction - instead, the promise of the open Internet was sabotaged, and big media gets to be more "convenient" at its sacrifice.
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  Or more realistically, if Mozilla had fought back, more people would simply have stopped using Firefox.
  - problems 10y ago
    Yeah, the problem started when people decided installing a browser from an ad agency seemed like a good idea.
    - marcoperaza 10y ago
      Why is reasonable DRM a problem in the first place? I'm paying Netflix $8 a month to watch thousands of movies whenever I want. Being constrained to a large number of devices that take some steps to prevent someone from ripping the movies is a fair tradeoff. It works flawlessly on my computer, on my phone, and on my xbox. The DRM hasn't bothered me once.
      - zanny 10y ago
        Because I'm going to immediately argue with you that there is no reasonable DRM. It comes from two ideological positions. One believes that content creators need complete systemic control of what they make - at all costs (that the creator maintains full control no matter how the content is interacted with) - and the other is that content shouldn't be controlled (or that I, as a buyer of content, should control the content I bought), and all real world implementations fall between those extremes. But when it comes to DRM, it should be understandable that plenty of people (myself included) are not willing to allow third party companies to run proprietary code (the drm) on my hardware for the exclusive purpose of preventing me from interacting with data on my own computer (the streamed movie / music). When web browsers start baking in this proprietary functionality, it forces me to look for alternatives to the established open source browsers. If you are content with that relationship with content (heh) providers, then this is not your fight. But at least accept that a lot of us want to own our computers, and proprietary software takes away that right, and DRM is just one of the more visceral forms proprietary software takes where its entire purpose is to impede the users ability to control their computers.

nikcub 10y ago

Because the browser provides a privacy and security sandbox where you can't be fingerprinted and where it is more difficult to turn decoding bugs into remote code execution exploits. Users should have a lot more faith in the protections of a browser over the free-for-all security and privacy nightmare that is desktop computing.

greenhouse_gas 10y ago
Who told you it's going to be sandboxed? It's probably going to be a obfuscated binary blob (it has to of it wants to try ensure that nothing is intercepting it) which will try verifying that OS isn't intercepting data.
- nikcub 10y ago
  Firefox: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1021232 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1021232 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1021235 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1021235 The spec talks about both securing the CDM with Sandboxing and preventing fingerprinting, amongst other security + privacy issues that should be addressed: https://w3c.github.io/encrypted-media/#cdm-security https://w3c.github.io/encrypted-media/#cdm-security https://w3c.github.io/encrypted-media/#privacy-fingerprinting https://w3c.github.io/encrypted-media/#privacy-fingerprintin... the spec also says if the CDN isn't sandboxed then the user needs to be warned and prompted to allow exec: > if a user agent chooses to support a Key System implementation that cannot be sufficiently sandboxed or otherwise secured, the user agent should ensure that users are fully informed and/or give explicit consent before loading or invoking it.