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I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

blog.samuelmaddock.com

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Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#261

Post by holy_city »

sergiotapia wrote: post #38
gcb0 wrote: post #19

let's address the elephant in the room. Google got the authority from everyone here who accepted chrome and IE DRM by default, to the point that even Firefox was forced to give in, so you all could be sedated by Netflix and other DRMed content.

Truth hurts. Is it too late to open up the web? I've already switched to Firefox.

It's not the web that needs to be open (or "more" open I guess). It's the legal teams at media companies that need to be educated on how FOSS works, what it can/can't do to/for your products, and the legal implications of it in your dependency graph and your vendors'.

If you walked into some of these offices and suggested making things more open, they would laugh in your face. They equate free and open software with making their IP free as in beer, and since they lost billions in revenue when the P2P sharing sites first popped up they have no interest in working to make anything easier for the smaller guys.

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#262

Post by nerdponx »

GuB-42 wrote: post #179
mmastrac wrote: post #12

The blame for this sits squarely on the w3c for their efforts in trying to replace flash by letting the content companies dictate standards for encrypted playback. If they had held fast, we could have forced the companies to do their key management in something like WebAssembly and avoided this gatekeeping mess.

The W3C isn't to blame. No one is to blame, really. We have DRM, we hate it but it's there, and it serves a purpose. If it is your intellectual property, you get to decide how it is used. And if you don't want to make copying too easy because you think that it will get you more money, that's your right. The goal of the W3C is not to make to make a political statement about the rightness or wrongness of DRM. They are…

If it is your intellectual property, you get to decide how it is used.

Another poster here made an interesting point, that this wasn't true until the 90s. Deciding "how it is used" is different from (and broader than) deciding "who gets to distribute it".

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#263

Post by shariat »

cmsimike wrote: post #97
noitsnot wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope Kodi makes some decent progress. I installed it a few weeks back and it is a rough experience. The docs on how to do simple things seem to be nonexistant because they don't want to be sued and shutdown entirely.

I think Kodi has made amazing progress. I've not had issues getting it installed on different devices since the 15.x days. Currently run it on 4 different dedicated devices in my apartment as well as some mobile and media devices. > The docs on how to do simple things seem to be nonexistant because they don't want to be sued and shutdown entirely. What docs are you looking for? They have a very extensive wiki as well…

what kind of device do you use?

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#264

Post by Cyph0n »

simias wrote: post #244
GuB-42 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The W3C isn't to blame. No one is to blame, really. We have DRM, we hate it but it's there, and it serves a purpose. If it is your intellectual property, you get to decide how it is used. And if you don't want to make copying too easy because you think that it will get you more money, that's your right. The goal of the W3C is not to make to make a political statement about the rightness or wrongness of DRM. They are…

You make good points but: >And if you don't want to make copying too easy because you think that it will get you more money, that's your right. They seem to think that but is there any truth to it? I do pirate some series/movies from time to time (mostly out of convenience) and you can get high quality rips of pretty much anything mere hours after it's available on streaming sites anyway. So what is this DRM supposed…

> So what is this DRM supposed to achieve?

I think DRM in general was never really designed to completely thwart piracy.

The goal is actually to delay the pirated version as much as possible and to raise the barrier to entry when pirated versions are eventually released into the wild.

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#265

Post by gowld »

tiraniddo wrote: post #92
jcranmer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blame Google and Microsoft. They were the people who created the specification, and pushed for it, when Netflix came begging for a solution to their DRM conundrum. Even if the W3C hadn't approved it, that's two of the big four browser vendors who are committing to implementing it anyways, which is enough to guarantee a de facto standard anyways.

No, blame the movie studios, record labels etc. They're the one which require asinine DRM support for web browsers. Google/Microsoft/Apple/Adobe want to support media content, but to do so requires towing the line with the media companies otherwise they refuse to license the content (at least in HD+). Having worked with various DRM teams I know that they have to treat their code as if its the most secret code in the…

As the OP explained in the backwards complaint, DRM support is NOT required for web browsers. You can make a web browser that does not render DRM content.

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#266

Post by __david__ »

verall wrote: post #243
Townley wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind helping me understand this a bit better? The link mentions that to produce a HDCP-compatible device (eg one that has an HDMI port) it needs to be licensed, pay an annual fee, and make promises to frustrate DRM-mitigation efforts. If I wanted to make my own monitor with a VGA input (or, more practically, pipe the signals coming from VGA into a program that does something with the feed) I would just have to find a…

Most of the above, with a couple caveats. For HDMI, specifically: A is true, as HDMI requires a pretty ugly IP core on an fpga or an asic to process or produce the phy. B is also true, as to sell a device with an HDMI port you have to join the group and pay fees. If you're just hacking stuff together for personal use I think you're A-okay here. C is true ONLY in the case of HDCP protected content, as that handshake d…

Also I'm pretty sure the hdcp private keys have been factored, so anyone can now make unauthorized but compatible devices.

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#267

Post by kllrnohj »

ambicapter wrote: post #142
kllrnohj wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't the author do the same thing Firefox does, which also uses Widevine DRM with no issues?

RTFA. Widevine is owned by Google. Google gives Firefox permission to use Widevine. Google took 4 months to give this individual a one-line rejection, ostensibly his only option for supporting DRM in a chromium-based solution like the one he is using (Electron). Now what?

I did RTFA did you? TFA has no mention of Firefox or Mozilla, nor why the download at runtime approach that Firefox uses is not viable for them. Firefox doesn't bundle widevine in their distribution. That changes things here. Maybe it's still not viable for some reason, but TFA certainly doesn't go into it at all.

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#268

Post by gowld »

monetus wrote: post #208
wolfgke wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tell it to my acquaintances all the time. Nearly all of them are not interested in this information.

I wonder how much of this is simply cognitive overload. I mean, climate change, crispr, ocean acidification, asteroids... I would guess that most people prioritize dopamine first and foremost. Software is arcane, so thinking about how it affects society probably seems irrelevant to them. Even if they do care, power dynamics make defeatism a logical and realistic mindset.

If you use Netflix as advertised, you don't need to know about DRM; it does its job without being noticeable. Netflix is a streaming service, not a movie store. There's no need for making backups. If you try to use Netflix outside the bounds of your agreement (like copying downloads to a different device), then the DRM becomes visible.

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#269

Post by cmsimike »

shariat wrote: post #263
cmsimike wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Kodi has made amazing progress. I've not had issues getting it installed on different devices since the 15.x days. Currently run it on 4 different dedicated devices in my apartment as well as some mobile and media devices. > The docs on how to do simple things seem to be nonexistant because they don't want to be sued and shutdown entirely. What docs are you looking for? They have a very extensive wiki as well…

what kind of device do you use?

I have: 3x raspberry pis 1x intel compute stick

iPhone (running MrMC) Apple TV (MrMC) but MrMC hasn't been updated to the latest Kodi yet so I can't use those in a shared env.

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