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A majority of websites doesn't use the EME DRM. It's Netflix and some other streaming portals. Any Chrome fork would work with almost all web sites beyond those
by est31 7y ago
A majority of websites doesn't use the EME DRM. It's Netflix and some other streaming portals. Any Chrome fork would work with almost all web sites beyond those few.
And with the new edge, there even will be a Chrome fork that supports EME DRM as well, and most likely it will support higher resolutions than Chrome itself as it's using OS built in DRM mechanisms that the studios love.
DRM is not the source of Google's control over Chrome. They use a different mechanism: manpower. They have an insane amount of developers working on Chrome, constantly changing it. Any smaller project forking Chrome and changing some major part won't be able to keep up with the changes unless they upstream. And ultimately, Google employees have control over what gets upstreamed and which contribution gets rejected.
- wnevets 7y agoDon't forget about customer outreach, you can't visit a major google property without being ask to switch.
- lucasmullens 7y agoDoes YouTube tell Firefox/Safari/Edge users to install Chrome?
- half-kh-hacker 7y agoI use Firefox Nightly and I haven't seen an 'install Chrome' banner on YouTube. The use of Shadow DOM v0 is a pretty good push, though. Chrome is way faster to load a YouTube page than FF. I hope they update their version of Polymer soon.
- est31 7y agoIDK about your setup, but for me, youtube is using Polymer 3.2.0 since a few weeks already. You can try out by evaluating Polymer.version in the dev console.
- wnevets 7y agoIt does for Edge
- scarface74 7y agoOn the desktop, going to Google with Edge asks you to “switch to a more secure browser -Chrome”
- zaarn 7y agoAtleast during Login I frequently get the message to install chrome so I can use my security keys and get forced on TOTP. Easily fixed with a UA change and the security keys even work! Who would have thought! And managing your security keys also requires Chrome, if you're on Firefox you also get told it's incompatible, despite being compatible.
- coretx 7y agoAre you aware of Widevine being Alphabet/Google property?
- ronsor 7y ago>it's using OS built in DRM mechanisms that the studios love that implies either Apple's FairPlay or Microsoft's PlayReady; no Widevine
- nyuszika7h 7y agoChrome uses Widevine, Chromium Edge uses both Widevine and PlayReady.
- est31 7y agoYes, Google owns Widevine. But if they really wanted to hurt browsers that don't have EME, they'd deploy DRM to all youtube videos, including the free ones and maybe even offer other DRM types like DRM'd text and DRM'd photographs and use them in their web services.
- boomboomsubban 7y ago>But if they really wanted to hurt browsers that don't have EME, they'd deploy DRM to all youtube videos, Can they just add DRM to content they do not own? They could likely work something out, but the problems may outweigh the benefit they would gain.
- fenwick67 7y agoGoogle certainly owns the right to transmit Youtube videos to users however they see fit.
- vitorgrs 7y agoYes. And Microsoft Edge Chromium on Windows also uses PlayReady.
- robocat 7y ago> They use a different mechanism: manpower. Can you tell me what you are basing that on? From my long experience with browsers, Google is beating the other main browsers primarily due to competence. Microsoft, Apple and Mozilla have huge teams, and each has their own marketing advantages. 0. Competence at security. Chrome is unbelievably secure - although perhaps this says more about Google tooling and culture than the Chrome Dev team. My impression is that Mozilla and Microsoft have struggled to be secure. 1. Competence at fixing bugs. Chrome absolutely creams the competition here (I have much experience with this. Chrome is amazing, Mozilla is middling, Apple and Microsoft are hideous). 2. Competence at avoiding regressions. Chrome seems to be fabulously reliable software considering its complexity and development velocity. Safari and Edge have given me many many headaches with odd breaking changes. 3. Competence at delivering to wide range of hardware and OS versions. Chrome has hardly given me any problems with Android or multiple Windows versions. I wish I could say the same for Chrome's competitors on their respective OS. Safari only has to deal with known hardware and OS version, yet I regularly discover weird composition faults. I don't know much about Firefox here. 4. Many other organisations break down with large dev teams: Google breaks that trend. That's institutional competence. > And ultimately, Google employees have control over what gets upstreamed and which contribution gets rejected. So alternatives? Community edition run by W3C? Socialist version funded by a Google tax? Tongue in cheek, but you seem to imply we should tell Google how to run their operation differently. As to the issue of DRM, why are we blaming Google for the DRM agreements that economically it had little choice to accept? Everything I have seen implies that the copyright barons are forcing Google to support it. Out of control DRM is our collective failure to control some powerful copyright lobbies. I am not a fan of DRM (or huge copyright terms). I too am sad that other browsers are failing to compete with Google. I especially want to see Mozilla succeed. But I think we should recognise the skill of the Chrome Dev team.
- JoshuaJB 7y agoA large part of that competence comes from their increased manpower. It's almost funny how many more developers they have. I heard from an ex-Google-intern that Google has over 1,000 people working on Chrome. Compare that with EdgeHTML's core dev team, which was well under 100 people (really closer to 50 if my memory serves me right).
- svnpenn 7y agoAlso Spotify.
- swiley 7y agoI was wondering why the web player didn't work.