7 ms·

Netflix on Linux with Chrome

131 points by callumjones 12y ago

aroman 12y ago
i don't think the explanation as to why this works is correct. the poster says it's because Google and Microsoft "have been working closely with Netflix to get the needed DRM code required for HTML5 streaming", yet: 1. the user-agent switch involves adding a Safari identifier (rather than IE or a new Chrome one) 2. at WWDC 2014, Apple announced that it had been working closely with Netflix along those lines, and that the upcoming version of Safari would be able to play Netflix without Silverlight. (And indeed Safari on Yosemite can do just that in the developer previews)
- mappu 12y ago
  That is a chrome UA, it has Chrome/X in it. Safari/X is a compatibility shim.
- nacs 12y ago
  That is the Chrome user agent. It mentions Safari and AppleWebkit for compatibility reasons but it's Chrome. Windows Chrome user-agent for reference: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/36.0.1985.125 Safari/537.36
  - emergentcypher 12y ago
    Ah, yes, another reminder of the hilariously bad user-agent situation in today's web...
- compedit 12y ago
  (And indeed Safari on Yosemite can do just that in the developer previews) Yep, it's definitely a bit buggy and stops occasionally but it's usable!
- voyou 12y ago
  "the user-agent switch involves adding a Safari identifier" Well, the default user agent string for Chrome already has a Safari identifier in it, but I don't think Safari user agents have a Chrome identifier. The change being made in the post doesn't add a Safari identifier, because there was one there already, but it does change the OS string to Windows. So I think the explanation in the post is probably right.
- azernik 12y ago
  For a humorous history of why exactly the Chrome UA string claims to be Safari, see this: http://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/ http://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/
  - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
    It's not complete without the new Windows Phone user agent, though: https://mobile.twitter.com/0xabad1dea/status/497122542885556224/photo/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/0xabad1dea/status/497122542885556...
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  I thought the whole point of "HTML5 DRM" was to be backed by hardware DRM. So are they giving up on that idea for Linux? And if they are, maybe hardware DRM isn't necessary on other platforms either.
  - jiggy2011 12y ago
    HTML5 DRM (EME) only defines an interface between the DRM system and the browser, it doesn't specify the mechanism for the DRM itself, the CDM is a black box . You could have a DRM scheme based on ROT13 and it would be entirely valid. https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-media/encrypted-media.html https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med...
- fafner 12y ago
  What they mean is that the "Digital Restriction Management in HTML5" proposal is pushed by Google, Microsoft, and Netflix into the W3C spec. Apple has simply followed the proposal and implemented it as well. AFAIK Chrome, IE, Safari ship with it. Firefox will follow suite by adding a Restriction Module from Adobe (given Adobe's track record it will certainly be an amazingly fast, flexible, beautiful, efficient, and nice way of viewing videos...). So Web-Restrictions is kinda unstoppable now. Instead of having a plugin-free future with HTML5 we have an even worse situation.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    "No DRM" was never an option. The option was between 1 DRM standard and 50 (so silverlight and widevine and....). The W3C made the most pragmatic choice, here. I think DRM is still crap, but one system is unambiguously better than >1.
    - girvo 12y ago
      Except Flash was at least used for stuff other than just DRM, so there was an incentive to get it working across all OSes. Linux is going to struggle once this is adopted, at least open browsers will, and that makes me sad
      - jiggy2011 12y ago
        The openness of the browser has nothing to do with it, the browser provides an interface to the DRM mechanism which could be open or closed source. Open source browsers like firefox already support proprietary plugins such as Flash. If anything this makes Linux support easier, because you no longer have to provide support for an entire virtual machine and all APIs such as Flash or Silverlight. The only software required will be the DRM module itself as everything else can be provided by the browser.
        fafner 12y ago
        The DRM mechanism can't really be open source. You could simply change it to write the unencrypted video data to the disk if it were. A plugin DRM module will also have to do all of the video rendering and displaying. Because if it just hands the unencrypted stream back to the browser then you could change the browser to simply write it to disk. The relevant DRM mechanisms will come from Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Adobe. Both Apple and Microsoft have no interest in supporting GNU/Linux. You won't get their DRM on GNU/Linux no matter how simple it is. Google seems to ship their DRM now on the GNU/Linux version of Chrome. But I don't know if the license allows using it in other browsers. Which would be hindered by the fact that Google uses their own unspecified PAPPI. Adobe wants to provide a DRM module for Firefox EME mechanism. But we all know from enough bad experience how well Adobe does GNU/Linux support. Flash on GNU/Linux was even worse than on any other system until they simply stopped it. They recently even stopped distributing Acrobat Reader for GNU/Linux. So yeah, great hope there. Even if they compile the module for GNU/Linux because Mozilla asks them to then we can expect the typical Adobe software safety and quality... Remember HTML5 was supposed to rid the world of Flash, Silverlight, and such things. Not force those binary blobs into the spec.
nmjohn 12y ago
Firefox + pipelight + UA switcher has been working flawlessly* for me for the last six months or so. It doesn't work on chrome anymore unfortunately after the update where they disabled NPAPI plugins. Native support still can't come soon enough.
pit 12y ago
I can confirm this works on Chrome on OpenSuSE 13.1: Version 37.0.2062.68 beta (64-bit)
RexRollman 12y ago
Really, it's more like accidently supported on Linux.
- fractalsea 12y ago
  But I thought that Netflix required Silverlight on the client to work. What is this using then?
  - pilif 12y ago
    The HTML5 encrypted media extensions. Chrome has support for that
batram 12y ago
If you use Ubuntu 14.04 (like me) you have to install a newer version of libnss3 (at least 3.16.2) and than it works. Runs smoother than pipelight + firefox at least for me.
- revasm 12y ago
  Full instructions for reference. Run: wget http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/n/nss/libnss3{_3.16.3-1ubuntu1_amd64,-1d_3.16.3-1ubuntu1_amd64,-nssdb_3.16.3-1ubuntu1_all}.deb sudo dpkg -i libnss3*.deb Create a new Tampermonkey script: // ==UserScript== // @name Netflix HTML5 for Linux // @namespace 0d0a3443-cc79-4f86-bf62-2dac581d2b3a // @version 0.1 // @description Enables HTML5 video support for the Linux host platform // @match *://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?* // @user-agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/37.0.2062.68 Safari/537.36 // ==/UserScript==
  - Retr0spectrum 12y ago
    I tried this, but I just get prompted to install the silverlight plugin. I am using Lubuntu 14.04.
    - tyleregeto 12y ago
      In your account settings, try turning on the HTML5 Player. Its opt-in.
frabbit 12y ago
CentOS-6.5 and later with Pipelight and Firefox 24.7.0 ESR works flawlessly. God knows what it's installing and what security holes I opened up by downloading it though. Looking forward to any native solutions.
captaincrunch 12y ago
If anyone gets it working, my start-up is doing some interesting things with Netfix: turboflix.com
- jaredsohn 12y ago
  Your website seems confusing a few ways: * You only list TV shows in the examples, despite the service offering both movies and shows * I actually do have all of those shows (or at least most) on my Netflix. Although I see on your Facebook page that the service is perhaps targeted to people in other countries.) * I am wondering if what your service offers will be legal, especially if you are charging for it (my best guess is that it is some kind of proxy that lets you access international Netflixes, perhaps a little more convenient than existing Chrome extensions in that it might list movies allowed in different countries together.)
captaincrunch 12y ago
If anyone gets it working, my start-up is doing some interesting things with Netfix: turboflix.com
finnn 12y ago
In other news, bittorrent continues to work on all platforms, without placing any restrictions on what viewers can do.
- themartorana 12y ago
  Including participating in massive copyright infringement. I struggle with the sentiment that if offered no other way to legally consume media, BitTorrent will show them! I can't find "The Money Pit" anywhere but BT. Does that make it ok to download? I don't know. Morally, legally, etc., I've never been quite so torn for quite so long.
  - DrJokepu 12y ago
    I think OP's point was that DRM pushes people to pirate content, regardless of whether this is morally acceptable or not.
    - rkangel 12y ago
      Fundamentally, I don't think that DRM pushes people to piracy, I think poor user experience does. A lot of that has come out of poor DRM implementations, which is where the problem is. Spotify on the other hand, is based on a form of DRM but as they provide a good app for every platform I want to use (including Linux), and allow you to sync offline (for when I have no internet), I will quite happily give them my money and have no intention of pirating music ever again.
    - rakoo 12y ago
      I think his point is rather that DRM asks more from the user (a specific browser, a specific plugin, a specific string to enter in a box) for essentially the same experience. Oh and you can do less things with a DRM'd media than with a non-DRM'd. Even though you technically have the same rights.
      - josteink 12y ago
        Oh and you can do less things with a DRM'd media than with a non-DRM'd. Even though you technically have the same rights. None of the big streaming-services supports the HW I have in my home-stereo rig. All of them supports H264 video and HDMI. Not offering me H264 content uncrippled is leaving me, as a potential customer, no reason to sign up.
Slix 12y ago
Does this work with only Chrome and not Chromium?
- TD-Linux 12y ago
  Yes. Only chrome includes the Widevine binary blob and supporting source code in the browser.
- azakai 12y ago
  Chromium is open source doesn't ship with the proprietary, closed bits of Chrome, like the EME DRM module which is used here. So this is Chrome-only.
- josteink 12y ago
  Open-source software can obviously never properly support DRM. Which is why Mozilla/Firefox was so much against this whole HTML5 DRM bullshit in the first place, and so should you have been to.
rakoo 12y ago
Fantastic. What do you use to watch movies and series on-demand ? Why, a web browser !
focus 12y ago
Doesn't work for me. Error Code: M7063-1913 lsb_release -d: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS uname -a: Linux x230 3.13.0-32-generic #57-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jul 15 03:51:08 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux chrome://version: 38.0.2114.2 (Official Build 287444) dev
marcelocamanho 12y ago
Anyone tried it on a Raspberry Pi?
- yeowMeng 12y ago
  google-chrome not supported on arm
  - lutusp 12y ago
    Say what? The majority of Android devices have ARM processors, and Chrome is available for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.chrome&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.ch...
Hengjie 12y ago
It works perfectly on v37 on my Mac OSX machine (running Mavericks)

131 points by callumjones 12y ago

i don't think the explanation as to why this works is correct. the poster says it's because Google and Microsoft "have been working closely with Netflix to get the needed DRM code required for HTML5 streaming", yet: 1. the user-agent switch involves adding a Safari identifier (rather than IE or a new Chrome one) 2. at WWDC 2014, Apple announced that it had been working closely with Netflix along those lines, and that the upcoming version of Safari would be able to play Netflix without Silverlight. (And indeed Safari on Yosemite can do just that in the developer previews)

mappu 12y ago
That is a chrome UA, it has Chrome/X in it. Safari/X is a compatibility shim.
nacs 12y ago
That is the Chrome user agent. It mentions Safari and AppleWebkit for compatibility reasons but it's Chrome. Windows Chrome user-agent for reference: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/36.0.1985.125 Safari/537.36
- emergentcypher 12y ago
  Ah, yes, another reminder of the hilariously bad user-agent situation in today's web...
compedit 12y ago
(And indeed Safari on Yosemite can do just that in the developer previews) Yep, it's definitely a bit buggy and stops occasionally but it's usable!
voyou 12y ago
"the user-agent switch involves adding a Safari identifier" Well, the default user agent string for Chrome already has a Safari identifier in it, but I don't think Safari user agents have a Chrome identifier. The change being made in the post doesn't add a Safari identifier, because there was one there already, but it does change the OS string to Windows. So I think the explanation in the post is probably right.
azernik 12y ago
For a humorous history of why exactly the Chrome UA string claims to be Safari, see this: http://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/ http://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  It's not complete without the new Windows Phone user agent, though: https://mobile.twitter.com/0xabad1dea/status/497122542885556224/photo/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/0xabad1dea/status/497122542885556...
higherpurpose 12y ago
I thought the whole point of "HTML5 DRM" was to be backed by hardware DRM. So are they giving up on that idea for Linux? And if they are, maybe hardware DRM isn't necessary on other platforms either.
- jiggy2011 12y ago
  HTML5 DRM (EME) only defines an interface between the DRM system and the browser, it doesn't specify the mechanism for the DRM itself, the CDM is a black box . You could have a DRM scheme based on ROT13 and it would be entirely valid. https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-media/encrypted-media.html https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med...
fafner 12y ago
What they mean is that the "Digital Restriction Management in HTML5" proposal is pushed by Google, Microsoft, and Netflix into the W3C spec. Apple has simply followed the proposal and implemented it as well. AFAIK Chrome, IE, Safari ship with it. Firefox will follow suite by adding a Restriction Module from Adobe (given Adobe's track record it will certainly be an amazingly fast, flexible, beautiful, efficient, and nice way of viewing videos...). So Web-Restrictions is kinda unstoppable now. Instead of having a plugin-free future with HTML5 we have an even worse situation.
- Karunamon 12y ago
  "No DRM" was never an option. The option was between 1 DRM standard and 50 (so silverlight and widevine and....). The W3C made the most pragmatic choice, here. I think DRM is still crap, but one system is unambiguously better than >1.
  - girvo 12y ago
    Except Flash was at least used for stuff other than just DRM, so there was an incentive to get it working across all OSes. Linux is going to struggle once this is adopted, at least open browsers will, and that makes me sad
    - jiggy2011 12y ago
      The openness of the browser has nothing to do with it, the browser provides an interface to the DRM mechanism which could be open or closed source. Open source browsers like firefox already support proprietary plugins such as Flash. If anything this makes Linux support easier, because you no longer have to provide support for an entire virtual machine and all APIs such as Flash or Silverlight. The only software required will be the DRM module itself as everything else can be provided by the browser.
      - fafner 12y ago
        The DRM mechanism can't really be open source. You could simply change it to write the unencrypted video data to the disk if it were. A plugin DRM module will also have to do all of the video rendering and displaying. Because if it just hands the unencrypted stream back to the browser then you could change the browser to simply write it to disk. The relevant DRM mechanisms will come from Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Adobe. Both Apple and Microsoft have no interest in supporting GNU/Linux. You won't get their DRM on GNU/Linux no matter how simple it is. Google seems to ship their DRM now on the GNU/Linux version of Chrome. But I don't know if the license allows using it in other browsers. Which would be hindered by the fact that Google uses their own unspecified PAPPI. Adobe wants to provide a DRM module for Firefox EME mechanism. But we all know from enough bad experience how well Adobe does GNU/Linux support. Flash on GNU/Linux was even worse than on any other system until they simply stopped it. They recently even stopped distributing Acrobat Reader for GNU/Linux. So yeah, great hope there. Even if they compile the module for GNU/Linux because Mozilla asks them to then we can expect the typical Adobe software safety and quality... Remember HTML5 was supposed to rid the world of Flash, Silverlight, and such things. Not force those binary blobs into the spec.

nmjohn 12y ago

Firefox + pipelight + UA switcher has been working flawlessly* for me for the last six months or so. It doesn't work on chrome anymore unfortunately after the update where they disabled NPAPI plugins. Native support still can't come soon enough.

pit 12y ago

I can confirm this works on Chrome on OpenSuSE 13.1: Version 37.0.2062.68 beta (64-bit)

RexRollman 12y ago

Really, it's more like accidently supported on Linux.

fractalsea 12y ago
But I thought that Netflix required Silverlight on the client to work. What is this using then?
- pilif 12y ago
  The HTML5 encrypted media extensions. Chrome has support for that

batram 12y ago

If you use Ubuntu 14.04 (like me) you have to install a newer version of libnss3 (at least 3.16.2) and than it works. Runs smoother than pipelight + firefox at least for me.

revasm 12y ago
Full instructions for reference. Run: wget http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/n/nss/libnss3{_3.16.3-1ubuntu1_amd64,-1d_3.16.3-1ubuntu1_amd64,-nssdb_3.16.3-1ubuntu1_all}.deb sudo dpkg -i libnss3*.deb Create a new Tampermonkey script: // ==UserScript== // @name Netflix HTML5 for Linux // @namespace 0d0a3443-cc79-4f86-bf62-2dac581d2b3a // @version 0.1 // @description Enables HTML5 video support for the Linux host platform // @match *://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?* // @user-agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/37.0.2062.68 Safari/537.36 // ==/UserScript==
- Retr0spectrum 12y ago
  I tried this, but I just get prompted to install the silverlight plugin. I am using Lubuntu 14.04.
  - tyleregeto 12y ago
    In your account settings, try turning on the HTML5 Player. Its opt-in.

frabbit 12y ago

CentOS-6.5 and later with Pipelight and Firefox 24.7.0 ESR works flawlessly. God knows what it's installing and what security holes I opened up by downloading it though. Looking forward to any native solutions.

captaincrunch 12y ago

If anyone gets it working, my start-up is doing some interesting things with Netfix: turboflix.com

jaredsohn 12y ago
Your website seems confusing a few ways: * You only list TV shows in the examples, despite the service offering both movies and shows * I actually do have all of those shows (or at least most) on my Netflix. Although I see on your Facebook page that the service is perhaps targeted to people in other countries.) * I am wondering if what your service offers will be legal, especially if you are charging for it (my best guess is that it is some kind of proxy that lets you access international Netflixes, perhaps a little more convenient than existing Chrome extensions in that it might list movies allowed in different countries together.)

captaincrunch 12y ago

If anyone gets it working, my start-up is doing some interesting things with Netfix: turboflix.com

finnn 12y ago

In other news, bittorrent continues to work on all platforms, without placing any restrictions on what viewers can do.

themartorana 12y ago
Including participating in massive copyright infringement. I struggle with the sentiment that if offered no other way to legally consume media, BitTorrent will show them! I can't find "The Money Pit" anywhere but BT. Does that make it ok to download? I don't know. Morally, legally, etc., I've never been quite so torn for quite so long.
- DrJokepu 12y ago
  I think OP's point was that DRM pushes people to pirate content, regardless of whether this is morally acceptable or not.
  - rkangel 12y ago
    Fundamentally, I don't think that DRM pushes people to piracy, I think poor user experience does. A lot of that has come out of poor DRM implementations, which is where the problem is. Spotify on the other hand, is based on a form of DRM but as they provide a good app for every platform I want to use (including Linux), and allow you to sync offline (for when I have no internet), I will quite happily give them my money and have no intention of pirating music ever again.
  - rakoo 12y ago
    I think his point is rather that DRM asks more from the user (a specific browser, a specific plugin, a specific string to enter in a box) for essentially the same experience. Oh and you can do less things with a DRM'd media than with a non-DRM'd. Even though you technically have the same rights.
    - josteink 12y ago
      Oh and you can do less things with a DRM'd media than with a non-DRM'd. Even though you technically have the same rights. None of the big streaming-services supports the HW I have in my home-stereo rig. All of them supports H264 video and HDMI. Not offering me H264 content uncrippled is leaving me, as a potential customer, no reason to sign up.

Slix 12y ago

Does this work with only Chrome and not Chromium?

TD-Linux 12y ago
Yes. Only chrome includes the Widevine binary blob and supporting source code in the browser.
azakai 12y ago
Chromium is open source doesn't ship with the proprietary, closed bits of Chrome, like the EME DRM module which is used here. So this is Chrome-only.
josteink 12y ago
Open-source software can obviously never properly support DRM. Which is why Mozilla/Firefox was so much against this whole HTML5 DRM bullshit in the first place, and so should you have been to.

rakoo 12y ago

Fantastic. What do you use to watch movies and series on-demand ? Why, a web browser !

focus 12y ago

Doesn't work for me. Error Code: M7063-1913 lsb_release -d: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS uname -a: Linux x230 3.13.0-32-generic #57-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jul 15 03:51:08 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux chrome://version: 38.0.2114.2 (Official Build 287444) dev

marcelocamanho 12y ago

Anyone tried it on a Raspberry Pi?

yeowMeng 12y ago
google-chrome not supported on arm
- lutusp 12y ago
  Say what? The majority of Android devices have ARM processors, and Chrome is available for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.chrome&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.ch...

Hengjie 12y ago

It works perfectly on v37 on my Mac OSX machine (running Mavericks)