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Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast

productforums.google.com

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Re: Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast

#11

Post by Sylos »

DrAwesome wrote: post #3
taspeotis wrote: post #2

Was it ever supported? The response in the forum is "[a]t this time, Chromium is not supported for use with Google Cast." which doesn't explicitly say that support was retracted. Original title, lest it changes: Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast (productforums.google.com) 3 points by keeperofdakeys 1 hour ago

I don't have a Chromecast set up, so I'm not 100% sure on this, but my understanding is that Chromium users could cast using the Google Cast extension, and that Google did something (intentionally or unintentionally) to break the Cast extension and didn't fix it because casting is built into directly into Chrome now.

Yeah, you could cast with the Google Cast extension over Chromium.

And it's generally believed that Google moved the Chromecast-functionality into Chrome and away from an extension to not necessarily lock out Chromium, but rather to lock out other Chromium-based browsers which could use their extensions, so for example Opera.

Firefox and, I believe, Edge are also getting support for Chrome extensions in the foreseeable future, so this might have increased the incentive to lock out browsers that can use their extensions, too.

Re: Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast

#12

Post by Sylos »

taspeotis wrote: post #2

Was it ever supported? The response in the forum is "[a]t this time, Chromium is not supported for use with Google Cast." which doesn't explicitly say that support was retracted. Original title, lest it changes: Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast (productforums.google.com) 3 points by keeperofdakeys 1 hour ago

No one ever held a press meeting and officially said that Chromium is supported by Chromecast (Chromium doesn't even officially exist as a product), but you could use Chromium with the Google Cast extension and it worked, anyways.

So, yes, legally speaking Google is doing no wrong here, but morally speaking it's not that great.

Re: Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast

#13

Post by jeremydw »

Sylos wrote: post #11
DrAwesome wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a Chromecast set up, so I'm not 100% sure on this, but my understanding is that Chromium users could cast using the Google Cast extension, and that Google did something (intentionally or unintentionally) to break the Cast extension and didn't fix it because casting is built into directly into Chrome now.

Yeah, you could cast with the Google Cast extension over Chromium. And it's generally believed that Google moved the Chromecast-functionality into Chrome and away from an extension to not necessarily lock out Chromium, but rather to lock out other Chromium-based browsers which could use their extensions, so for example Opera. Firefox and, I believe, Edge are also getting support for Chrome extensions in the foreseeab…

What is that speculation based on? Why wouldn't Google want more browsers to be able to Cast?

My opinion: I feel like this is a pro-user move with an unfortunate side effect of breaking/unsupporting an extension. If I just want to cast to my TV why should I have to hunt for an extension. I'd rather it "just work" via a context menu in the browser.

Re: Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast

#14

Post by ekianjo »

taspeotis wrote: post #2

Was it ever supported? The response in the forum is "[a]t this time, Chromium is not supported for use with Google Cast." which doesn't explicitly say that support was retracted. Original title, lest it changes: Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast (productforums.google.com) 3 points by keeperofdakeys 1 hour ago

Yeah it was working before with the Google cast extension on Chromium.

Re: Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast

#15

Post by petre »

gcb0 wrote: post #10

People really have any expectation from Google devices? Even android which whole marketing is that it is "more open" only receives self-serving features. Btw, the access to chrome-cast is baked in the playStore service. So your app has to be compiled with full google play store tracking library to use it. ...i used to help maintain a version of fenec (firefox for android) that was build without chromecast support jus…

Just remove their commit rights or fork the project.

Re: Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast

#16

Post by jfoster »

startling wrote: post #8
jfoster wrote: post #5

This isn't a response from a Google employee, right? My understanding is that there is some sort of volunteer programme for Google forums. (Side-note: Is there anything in it for the volunteers? How does Google convince them to do this?)

I think she may be a Google employee. Google's product / support forums are always like this, it's terrible.

Pretty sure she's not. If you hover over the icon on her profile picture, it says "Expert - Google Products". I can't find an example, but as I recall they have something like "Google Employee" that leaves it in no doubt when it's an employee response.

Re: Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast

#17

Post by kalleboo »

ekianjo wrote: post #14
taspeotis wrote: post #2

Was it ever supported? The response in the forum is "[a]t this time, Chromium is not supported for use with Google Cast." which doesn't explicitly say that support was retracted. Original title, lest it changes: Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast (productforums.google.com) 3 points by keeperofdakeys 1 hour ago

Yeah it was working before with the Google cast extension on Chromium.

Working and Supported are two different things

Re: Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast

#18

Post by pluma »

jfoster wrote: post #5

This isn't a response from a Google employee, right? My understanding is that there is some sort of volunteer programme for Google forums. (Side-note: Is there anything in it for the volunteers? How does Google convince them to do this?)

Google rewards crazy active contributors with early access to certain experimental features of their products and access to special events or something. For a taste check out the Google Maps app's contributions tab for info on the "Local Guide" programme. IMO the title is misleading as the only way to get to the higher tiers is to visit a lot of different places, not to provide detailed info on a handful.

Re: Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast

#19

Post by int_19h »

jeremydw wrote: post #13
Sylos wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you could cast with the Google Cast extension over Chromium. And it's generally believed that Google moved the Chromecast-functionality into Chrome and away from an extension to not necessarily lock out Chromium, but rather to lock out other Chromium-based browsers which could use their extensions, so for example Opera. Firefox and, I believe, Edge are also getting support for Chrome extensions in the foreseeab…

What is that speculation based on? Why wouldn't Google want more browsers to be able to Cast? My opinion: I feel like this is a pro-user move with an unfortunate side effect of breaking/unsupporting an extension. If I just want to cast to my TV why should I have to hunt for an extension. I'd rather it "just work" via a context menu in the browser.

It favors a particular implementation (Chromecast) in a market where there are several competing standards and no established leader. Shouldn't Miracast, for example, "just work" as well?

Re: Chromium is no longer supported for Chromecast

#20

Post by acdimalev »

alexmat wrote: post #7

The new cast feature in recent builds of chromium is not working for me. It fails to find any devices. Looking at the debug output it says: "media router not defined." After a bit of googling I found you can revert back to using the old cast extension by following these instructions: https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6349849?hl=en

Thank you! I don't know if this was up the last time I looked.

There are flags to gate the feature in the source-- looks like the iOS build excludes it. Going to leave a build running overnight and give it a look in the morning. If tearing it out works, I'll post a patch to the Debian bug report.

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=833477

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