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Microsoft Edge, HTML5, and DRM
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft is building its new browser, Edge, with the intention of avoiding many of the flaws that plagued Internet Explorer over its long and tumultuous life. Part of this involves moving away from plug-ins, and Edge will not support ActiveX. Instead, they're focusing on interoperable media, and that means non-plug-in video players that meet HTML5 specs. Of course, not all video players want to disseminate their content for free, which means: DRM. Microsoft's Edge team has published a new post explaining how they'll be handling support for DRM and "premium media" in the new browser.
They say, "Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge support DASH, MSE, EME and CENC natively, and other major browsers ship implementations of MSE and CENC compliant EME. This support allows developers to build plug-in free web video apps that runs across a huge range of platforms and devices, with each MSE/EME implementation built on top of a different media pipeline and DRM provider. In the days when DRM systems used proprietary file formats and encryption methods, this variation in DRM providers by browser would have presented a significant issue. With the development and use of Common Encryption (CENC), the problem is substantially reduced because the files are compressed in standard formats and encrypted using global industry standards. The service provider issues the keys and licenses necessary to consume the content in a given browser, but the website code, content and encryption keys are common across all of them, regardless of which DRM is in use."
They say, "Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge support DASH, MSE, EME and CENC natively, and other major browsers ship implementations of MSE and CENC compliant EME. This support allows developers to build plug-in free web video apps that runs across a huge range of platforms and devices, with each MSE/EME implementation built on top of a different media pipeline and DRM provider. In the days when DRM systems used proprietary file formats and encryption methods, this variation in DRM providers by browser would have presented a significant issue. With the development and use of Common Encryption (CENC), the problem is substantially reduced because the files are compressed in standard formats and encrypted using global industry standards. The service provider issues the keys and licenses necessary to consume the content in a given browser, but the website code, content and encryption keys are common across all of them, regardless of which DRM is in use."
DRM and all that.
What they're glossing over with their review is that adblocker extensions, password managers, extensions that prevent video from autoplaying and etc. will not be available. And I won't use Edge because if I can't control the behavior of my web browser I won't use that web browser.
"Of course, not all video players want to disseminate their content for free"
The usual crap, since when does a video player decide whether content is free or not? supporting DRM playback is not the same as forcing DRM on content. The video player plays no part in whether the content is free or not, that is the content providers, the player just supports the playback.
No more from them in regards to the 'net, it's over.
As a professional web developer utilizing microsoft technology has proven time and time again that proprietary created code is inferior, slower, and less operational than the open source movement which is producing operation at an astounding rate for even minimal hardware. .net is inferior to javascript, iis is inferior to both apache and nodejs, they never came up with a good solid fast user interface, or a decent database. Everything they create they try to glue a price tag to in some way, and none of it can talk to anything else unless you pay more money to learn to use a system that is supposed to facilitate getting work done.
Their past provides a pattern that all intelligences can see plainly, they are hostile to the idea of openness, creation, and innovation except where it feeds them.
All microsoft products are radioactive with their greedy selfish nature.
I read a few years ago how Netflix,Hulu and Amazon were all going big time to HTML5 but so far its not been a fast as they claimed. About the only one embracing HTML5 in a big way has been YouTube. You even see plenty of Flash content around and Silverlight even though Google Chrome has basically snubbed Silverlight in Chrome and even Microsoft says Edge won't use Silverlight. One has to wonder how this will frustrate some users who are not tech savvy and wonder why their content won't work? All browsers are now capable of HTML5 so what's the holdup? Well the holdup is that not everyone is on the same page of maturity of developing HTML5 streaming and while everyone has been talking about it for years. Its still moving at a snails pace.
Vocal by David "The Edge" Evans => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2lbiS1fris.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
July 31, 2012
Microsoft (MS) began encrypting web-based chat with the introduction of the new outlook.com service. This new Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption effectively cut off collection of the new service for FAA 702 and likely 12333 (to some degree) for the Intelligence Community (IC). MS, working with the FBI, developed a surveillance capability to deal with the new SSL. These solutions were successfully tested and went live 12 Dec 2012. The SSL solution was applied to all current FISA and 702/PRISM requirements - no changes to UTT tasking procedures were required. The SSL solution does not collect server-based voice/video or file transfers. The MS legacy collection system will remain in place to collect voice/video and file transfers. As a result there will be some duplicate collection of text-based chat from the new and legacy systems which will be addressed at a later date. An increase in collection volume as a result of this solution has already been noted by CES.
March 15, 2013
SSO's PRISM program began tasking all Microsoft PRISM selectors to Skype because Skype allows users to log in using account identifiers in addition to Skype usernames. Until now, PRISM would not collect any Skype data when a user logged in using anything other than the Skype username which resulted in missing collection; this action will mitigate that. In fact, a user can create a Skype account using any e-mail address with any domain in the world. UTT does not currently allow analysts to task these non-Microsoft e-mail addresses to PRISM, however, SSO intends to fix that this summer. In the meantime, NSA, FBI and Dept of Justice coordinated over the last six months to gain approval for PRINTAURA to send all current and future Microsoft PRISM selectors to Skype. This resulted in about 9800 selectors being sent to Skype and successful collection has been received which otherwise would have been missed.
March 7, 2014
PRISM now collects Microsoft Skydrive data as part of PRISM'S standard Stored Communications collection package for a tasked FISA Amendments Act Section 702 (FAA702) selector. This means that analysts will no longer have to make a special request to SSO for this - a process step that many analysts may not have known about. This new capability will result in a much more complete and timely collection response from SSO for our Enterprise customers. This success is the result of the FBI working for many months with Microsoft to get this tasking and collection solution established.
The XBox One has been out, nothing approaching a break, and the XBox 360 will get killed off XBL the second someone sticks a modded ROM on there.
As for Windows, seen an activation crack for W2012 R2 or W2012, or even W8? Even fake KMS servers don't last long (a few hours at most).
MS in the DRM department is doing quite well.
Sadly, I'm not compatible with DRM so I guess I can't use that new browser.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
As distasteful as I find DRM, at least we see Microsoft trying to improve their web browser. With Edge they're actually succeeding in creating something that average users do want to use!
This should scare the living daylights out of Mozilla. They've been having enough trouble competing with Chrome. Now they'll be competing with Chrome, as well as this browser from Microsoft that people are pretty happy about so far.
Things don't look good for Firefox. Firefox's share of the market has dropped so much. Recent browser market share stats show that all versions of Firefox Desktop are only around 8% of the market. Firefox 38 is only at 7.45%, so we can expect Firefox 39 to be below that, possibly forever. Firefox for Android is at 0.14% (yes, that's a leading 0!), and Firefox isn't really a viable option on iOS.
To put things in perspective, the latest version of Chrome for Android by itself, at 13.77%, has almost twice the number of users as Firefox has in total! IE 11 at 7.60%, and Safari for iOS 8.3 at 6.42%, both almost exceed Firefox's total number of users!
Clearly desktop users are fleeing Firefox, and nobody wants to use Firefox for Android. Mozilla has no other projects of significance aside from Firefox. Nobody uses Firefox OS, even the third-worlders they tried to force it on. Bugzilla is a relic. They put Thunderbird out to pasture some time ago. Let's Encrypt has yet to deliver anything useful. Rust is unimpressive and unwieldy, even now that 1.0 was finally released after so many years. Servo is very experimental, and its progress is crawling along slower than even Rust's did!
This decline in the usage of Firefox, combined with the total lack of future prospects, should have everyone involved with Mozilla in a total panic! This is an organization that should be shitting its pants, so to speak. The only reason it still exists, Firefox, is rapidly evaporating. What, do they really think that Yahoo! will keep throwing money at them once Firefox has almost no users to target?
Yet instead of the unrestrained panic that we should be seeing out of Mozilla, we instead see them continuing down the same path of failure that has dogged them for so many years now. They make more dumb and unwanted social media changes to Firefox that nobody actually wants. Heck, they most notable part of this release is that they removed or disabled existing functionality!
I used to like Firefox. I want Mozilla to succeed. But son of a bitch, it's like they're doing everything they can to speed up their demise, while being totally oblivious to it the whole time! Why won't they, as a collective group of people, wake up to what's happening?!
is on the record as saying he doesn't believe there is a possible way to play a video without infringing on a patent. Given that, of course, Microsoft doesn't believe you should be allowed to play non-DRM videos. He also believes you can't build a smartphone without paying Microsoft money. Microsoft currently makes more money off of Android phones than the companies that make the chips, assemble the phones, write the OS, and write the apps that come with the phone.
Who comes up with these idiotic names? Why not "Microsoft Nail" or "Microsoft Lance" or "Microsoft Thing That Penetrates"?
"Microsoft Edge" is a very '90s name to my ears, but maybe it's just the fact that I've been sitting on the porch drinking, eating barbecue and watching fireworks for the past several hours. But Microsoft was never really good at names, although I did once have a three-legged dog named "Clippy" (that's actually true).
You are welcome on my lawn.
So what. He's a piece of shit freedom hater. My wife, a former admin for his office, was fired for admitting that her husband uses Linux at home. The moron actually thinks Linux is illegal to use. She said he spent more time at Microsoft ranting about people he hates than he did actually working. He is so liberal that Obama said he was on the short list for Secretary of Commerce. The man hates the free market, and believes in hard-core communism. We're lucky Microsoft let him rule rather than having him take the government position.
Browsers are moving away from plug-ins as well
If there are to be no plugins, then why does the Windows 10 technical preview ship with Adobe Flash preinstalled? Will this change when the official release of Windows 10 ships later this month?
Who would want an x-box anyway?
To play games that are exclusive to an Xbox platform or games that are released on Xbox and PlayStation platforms but not PC. Or because a video game console can be cheaper and easier to operate than a comparable gaming PC.
Pirating software means having to make a bit-for-bit copy with enough changes that it runs without DRM.
The video game Mino was not a bit-for-bit copy of Tetris but was still ruled pirated.
.net is inferior to javascript
In what way?
One advantage of the .NET Framework is static typing. In a fully dynamic language such as PHP, Python, or JavaScript, you need to put unit tests into your program to make sure the correct types are getting passed in and out of functions. A language with static typing, such as C#, already ensures type safety. So it's like the compiler writes a lot of your unit tests for you.
The .NET Framework used to have the disadvantage of being a non-free platform, which put .NET programs in what FSF calls a "Java trap". But nowadays, a lot of the interesting parts of the .NET Framework are released under a free software license.
You even see plenty of Flash content around
That's in part because it took so long to make visual editors for animated SVG and HTML5 Canvas that were comparable to Flash MX, let alone Flash CS. And Edge Animate, the HTML5 animation tool from the maker of Flash, is available only on a rental model, not a purchase model. So things like animutations and Weebl's Stuff still tend to depend on Flash.
A Microsoft "Tech" calls for HELP.
"Microsoft Manager Please Respond NOW: I used Miscrosoft Word to revise the code of Edge but when I double-click on the edited document, it still launches Word and not EDGE. Please respond quickly and NOW."
Oh well. Another "Explorer" !
Ha ha
Who comes up with these idiotic names?
I don't know who, but I do know when. IE 8 introduced the X-ua-compatible header. "Use the following value to display the webpage in edge mode, which is the highest standards mode supported by Internet Explorer."
Considering the total undermining of privacy and security that individuals and all types of institutions are suffering from everywhere, MS really has their priorities screwed up. If MS wants to make a comeback, they need to treat the actual users as their prime customers and top priority. This recklessly designing everything around pimping the users has to stop.
The old 60's phrase "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" applies.
It's hard to have much hope for beneficial change coming out of the U.S., but maybe some in the EU could come up with some radically different new requirements for the privacy/security in systems to be considered for sale there? Read those draft trade agreements. Chances are they push the opposite of what's needed.
He has said many times he wants a all no communists to die. He wants the average person to die. He hates us. Anyone that doesn't pay Microsoft each year needs to die according to him.
He has said many times he wants a all no communists to die. He wants the average person to die. He hates us. Anyone that doesn't pay Microsoft each year needs to die according to him. He hates us.
He supports the genocide of whir males. That proves he is a good person.
Happy 4th of July everyone! The founding day of the greatest nation on Earth - the nation which has helped to bring or restore freedom to countless millions around the world.
If you are free, this is the day to be thankful for the nation who has led and protected the way.
Actually, yes, I've been using a tool to keep an illegit copy of Win8 (now 8.1) running since I first installed it quite some time ago. I've yet to run into any website/tool/other than says my system isn't legit. It most certainly isn't from the "did you purchase this/get a valid key" perspective. I haven't tried it on W2012, but I have a spare machine, I'll consider testing that.
He and his kind want us die
I will admit I haven't tried Firefox in years, but when it comes to both Opera and Chrome they are often so CPU intensive I can't use them, for anyone running off a battery they are a no-go. Opera and Chrome will use up to 60% CPU on my PC playing 1080p50 HTML5 video for example, Edge uses no more than 5-8%. Opera and Chrome often go in the high 20-30% CPU for no particular reason.
What is Microsoft going to do about their own regional offices who undercut the traditional independent and evangelizing end points of the Microsoft sales team?
I've seen plenty of salesmen trying to sell their Microsoft solution who clearly have become frustrated that their magic word that closed deals no longer works: We offer a Microsoft solution -> Sold!
A few years ago (5-6 years?), some guy came over to try to sell SharePoint and claimed that everyone should stop using FireFox in our business, since IE was clearly the best browser out there. He meant only IE was supported by SharePoint. When I pointed him to the fact that our business had 20% Mac 75% Linux and 5% others, including Windows (and only to run some obscure software that still needed to be replaced by a more OS agnostic solution), he sighed and told us that there were more and more businesses who left the Windows world.
I've met that guy a few times later on (he is also a biker, we often have a drink together when we meet on some biking event), and he not only complains about the difficulties to convince people to lay thier future in the hands of a Microsoft eco-system, but more about the difficulties with Microsoft. Once they manage to trap a customer in the MS eco system, which is now all about cloud applications, it is Microsoft that will step in a offer discounts when the customers buy directly from MS and bypass the independent reseller.
Many of the traditional MS resellers have gone bankrupt or have degraded to nothing more than phone help desk service centers, and now form the first line of Microsofts help desk system. They are now the ones who will have to communicate in the local language with the local client, and than try to find solutions with the help of some difficult to understand foreigner in some low wage country.
I don't know how it is in the US, but here in my part of Europe it has gone all downhill with Microsoft as a work enabler, except when you think that a call center help desk job is a dream job for someone with a university degree in computer science...
When you want a nice job, don't go for Computer Science, there is a too high chance you'll end up in a call center anyway. Just go for MBA. I'm lucky to have become the IT manager of a business that doesn't work in the IT sector. I'm the one who is responsible for 'the computer network' and if anything goes wrong it will be my fault, and I'll probably end up on the street. I've already had to defend myself against Microsoft trolls who kept on phoning my boss about how I would run the business into the ground for not choosing Microsoft solutions. Luckily for me, my boss already had a big distrust in Microsoft with the constant breaking of their own standards of office documents (he hated it that he was forced to spend hundreds of thousand Euro because Microsofts decisions), and their trolling even convinced him more to never trust any Microsoft solution anymore.
Last week I saw an ex class mate (from secondary school) on the news show who was ringing the bell in our local stock exchange. Apparently had was the one responsible for the IPO of a very promising pharmaceutical business that invented (and patented) a very cheap IVF product.
His big smile couldn't hide the fact that with every gong another million was added on his bank account. He was not the most clever student when it came to getting good grades. But he was the most clever one to choose a career in economics. If I only new that a career in 'economics' was something else than becoming an accountant, and even more, if I only new that a career in computer sciences would turn into a phone help desk job for the majority of the workers in the not so distant future. I was only lucky to be among the first specialists who still could move up the ladder.
The business I work for is still going strong, and I hope to be able to stay there for quite some time, but when I lose this job, I've no trust in the future to find a engaging job in the IT world, now I'm nearing my 50's.
what a ridiculous waste of effort. The DRM will be broken by pirates within months, if not weeks, of release, and eventually rendered useless, but meanwhile, regular users will get screwed when the shoddy implementations make the user experience suck.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
NEVER 4GET
10 -11 12 2000 we don't care ! do whatever you want Microsoft . We already have our browsers
2012 R2 is easily and permanently defeated with the latest version of Daz's Windows Loader. Not linking for reasons that should be obvious. (FYI, there are lot of fake sites hosting malware under this name too.)
The only use MS Edge has on Windows 10 is to download another browser: Chrome, Firefox or something else. I personally like the new and upcoming browser called Vivaldi (from a co-founder of Opera).
Microsoft, I don't want your 'ecosystem'. I don't want a Microsoft account, Bing, Xbox Live, Skype/MSN, Outlook (Hotmail), Onedrive. I don't want to download stuff from the Microsoft app store. I don't care for Minecraft. And I don't care for your bipolar Halo skank Cortana.
If you think Windows 10 is going to revive your ambitions for Windows phones and tablets, you're in for a nasty surprise.