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Netflix Now Works On Linux With HTML5 DRM Video Support In Chrome
An anonymous reader writes "Beginning with the Chrome 38 Beta it's now possible to watch Netflix without any Wine/Silverlight plug-ins but will work natively using Chrome's DRM-HTML5 video capabilities with Netflix. The steps just involve using the latest beta of Chrome and an HTTP user-agent switcher to tell Netflix you're a Windows Chrome user, due to Netflix arbitrarily blocking the Linux build."
I find it hard to believe that they would do it just because they can.
Netflix Now Works On Linux
After they discover people are doing this (thanks slashdot!) it isn't going to be working for much longer.
Anybody know? They have been talking about their own HTML5 video encryption for a while, for this to suddenly be a Chrome thing.
How do I remove the DRM, save it as mkv and upload it to TPB?
Wake me up when it's the Year of the Linux Desktop and I don't have to care about such twaddle and it Just Works.
From the comments on the thread, it doesn't seem to work for a large number of people (myself included). It's possible that they're whitelisting builds they've tested and know work rather than blacklisting Linux.
Could it maybe be because there are 100+ too many damn distros to deal with compared to lets say XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 all win32 compatible. It would be nice if the linux community concentrated on 1 - 3 distros and put their energy into creating better applications. But if it's true that Netflix somehow is blocking linux from running their service it is pretty damn shameful since netflix relies on linux, bsd servers and also linux based devices like roku to get their netflix services into many homes. Find a way to ban netflix from linux that will teach them.
But, netflix streaming monthly releases have been getting pretty damn bad anyway especially for the u.s region. For example, SG1 is in fact licensed by netflix but only available in UK, Denmark, Chile, etc... Because the greedy asshole copyright owners want to milk u.s(bigger market) as much as they can in dvd sales and in syndication, well it is their right anyway, but they are still assholes.
This is great news! Now I can refurb laptops that have HDMI but are generally not so fast and had XP or Vista with Ubuntu and sell them as netflix devices. I've had a lot of requests for $50-100 netflix devices that can surf the web. They're cheaper than the price difference on non-smart and smart TVs and they're a hell of a lot more upgradeable. What I find most surprising is that Chrome runs on Linux. I had no idea!
Does anyone know if this works for Chromium, the open source offshoot of Chrome? What about the latest official Ubuntu repo installation? Mint?
The hollowing out of Linux and free software continues. Not only do corporations use it to build walled gardens (Google, Apple), now they're building a tunnel of anti-freedom into its core. Will anything be left of free software soon other than "open source" exploited by corporations?
So, how long until this DRM module is hacked to let you save uncrypted copies?
So instead of using ugly, proprietary, client restricted, DRM infected players like Silverlight, we can NOW use an ugly, proprietary, DRM infected client like Chrome (now with %100 more Datamining and user tracking than the leading web browser).
Its not really a win for 'nix users when we could have just implemented DRM in Moonlight if we had wanted it (and which also came down to licensing issues). So what? Is Google going to open source their HTML5 streaming DRM and make it option for the distros which don't want it? [read: nearly all of them]
The take away will be 'see, Linux users didn't adopt the HTML5 that they wanted so badly. Guess they just don't matter after all.'
I wish Netflix or Amazon Prime ran on my Raspbmc setup.
10: PRINT "Everything old is new again."
20: GOTO 10
I was able to get this working using the instructions in the original post - with the following changes:
I first tried with Debian stable. The google-chrome-unstable deb installs OK, but I couldn't get the video to play. /var/lib/libvirt/images/siddy.img -cpu kvm64,+nx -enable-kvm -m 1536 -soundhw hda -usb
I saw posts that it might work with sid. So I cooked up a sid vm.
My default NAT network was disabled, I found some instructions to re-enable it.
Once I had a sid vm, I found that there was no sound. I set it to ac97 in virt-manager but ended up abandoning virt-manager and using this command line
sudo qemu-system-x86_64
Once I had sound and networking going, I installed the google-chrome-unstable deb in the VM. Then I found the user-agent extension and installed that. I created a user-agent using EXACTLY the string given in the original post...
And now I'm watching a netflix movie.
Right now I have the chrome in the VM displaying to a Xephyr window in the host environment, will be interested to see if there is a better way.
And it's true we should not have to do crap like this to use our netflix accounts!
Assuming the current hack via User-Agent switcher doesn't work in the long run.
(Well, it may or it may not.)
What if NetFlix demanded you to add them to your repositories in order to support your OS?
(Note that I speak Debian.)
Would you then be willing to pay them for their media services?
I'm a big Linux guy, but I gave in and threw Windows on my HTPC. The idea was to integrate XBMC and Netflix in one box, and Windows felt it was the best to do that despite my disinterest in running Windows. Well, I did, and it was terrible. I just found Netflix even on Windows to be terrible. My cursor would never disappear and I had an odd amount of screen tearing that I couldn't seem to figure out. While other browsers offered slightly different behavior, none were problem free. Out of curiosity I fired up Netflix on a few other Windows systems with different hardware configurations and I still found my Netflix experience to be a far cry from how seamless it felt on my Chromecast. Ultimately I went back to a dedicated Ubuntu HTPC with XBMC and the Chromecast for Netflix/the occasional YouTube video.
Moral of the story is, Netflix just felt better on an appliance built to run it. I would far rather run Netflix on an Android set top box, Chromecast, Roku, Apple TV, etc before I'd bother with the Windows solution again on a full computer. I'm sure others have different experiences, but I'm simply sharing mine. Netflix on an appliance is undoubtedly a better solution than Netflix on Windows, which makes me that much less interested in seeing Netflix work on Linux. I'll just run an appliance for that and move on with life. It doesn't replace my frustration with Netflix ignoring Linux, but ehh, whatever.
...and instead talk about what the hell is going on syntactically in that summary?
I work for an engineering college at a big research university. As such, lots of computers, some of them Linux. Despite the smug assurances you may see online that Linux users don't need support, nothing could be further from the truth. Some people who choose to use Linux at work do it because they've a lot of experience with it, and aren't much trouble. However many more do it either because:
1) They have a tool that only runs on Linux, or more accurately that they can only figure out how to make run on Linux. It is usually something cobbled together by a researcher at another university for Ubuntu and only compiles easily on that. If you knew what you were doing you could modify it for something else, but they don't. They usually end up needing a moderate amount of support.
2) They have the idea that Linux is the "l33t professional" OS and it's what you need to use if you want to be a serious computer user, so they want it. No thought goes in to it, they have no experience with it, no understanding, they figure it'll just be easy. These kinds need a ton of support.
A few examples:
--A grad student said she needed Linux on the computer she had bought and configured (without consulting IT). All the software she wanted run on Windows and out Linux guy even told her she'd be better off with Windows. Nope, had to have Linux. We got a continual stream of tickets when she couldn't figure things out, had problems with the AMD driver and so on, and he finally told her "Let us install Windows or go away."
--A professor who bought a system and FPGA card, again without consulting us, and then said he needed Linux. This was after his grad student tried and failed to install it, hosing the system in the process. We put Linux on, and then it turns out neither he nor his grad student have any idea how to make the FPGA card work. It has no programming, you have to do it from scratch. They also don't know how to use Linux to the point they whined about "not having admin" on the Linux install which they had full control on, they just couldn't work out sudo.
--A couple of grad students that insisted a new server needed to be Linux "for best performance". This was during a time when we didn't have a Linux guy (we are a small team, and our last one had left we were in the process of hiring the current one) so I looked in to it, and found the lead and recommended platform was Windows. I talked to the professor about it and she said go ahead with Windows, they grad students could deal, since support would be easier on Windows. Got the server up and running, first thing they wanted? Two programs that are Windows only and were mandatory to what they were doing. Had we given them Linux, we would have been reinstalling the server right away because it literally couldn't run the software they needed.
The flipside of Linux seeing increasing use is that there are plenty of clueless Linux users. They don't go in to Linux saying "I really enjoy computers and learning about them, I want to learn all about this OS, how it works, how to support it, how to modify it, etc." Rather they go in saying "Oh Linux is free!" or "Oh Linux is what hackers use!" and have no idea what the fuck they are doing, and need help.
You find that for Windows and OS-X, support is pretty broad. Stated as things like "Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8" and pretty lax hardware allowances. However when you look at games for Linux they are things like "SteamOS" or "Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Steam OS" and sometimes specific hardware that is supported.
Why is that? Compatibility issues. They aren't going to go and support every varied Linux distro out there. They've found a couple that work (and the same thing really, SteamOS descends from Ubutnu LTS) and that's what they are going to support. Doesn't mean it won't necessarily work on other stuff, but they aren't going to take any calls on it.
You see it in enterprise software too. The engineering programs we have tend to have a couple extremely specific enterprise Linux distros they support and that's it. Call them running anything else, they'll tell you to go away.
Linux users just have to accept this as one of the costs of openness. If you have an OS that anyone can fork, anyone can redsign, anyone can do their own things, well then support will get limited to chosen configurations. The more complex the software and its interactions with the OS, the more limited the configurations that will be supported.
Lookie, Netflix. Keep all your DRM crap to yourself and... choke on it.
If I ever had the *need* of some of that (I'm so far fine without, thankyouverymuch), I'd go to a torrent. Way better customer service there.
That's no good. *Gack*
Deleted Chrome.
The article cites V37 (or V38beta) but the download page gives you V36 (at least on my 64 bit Ubuntu) and IT DOESN'T WORK.
I just canceled my Netflix account and uninstalled Chrome. Say no to DRM in HTML5.
It's not a quality investment if the expected ROI is less than unity. The risk of default is too great. High yield bonds have to promise high yield to make up for the risk of default. Lottery fails to meet even that.
Does this mean that Plex support for Netflix is returning?
Shillmod, or butthurt? Inquiring minds think you need to put down the Kool-Aid.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
SO it works in Linux as long as it doesn't detect that you are running Linux... yay logic