The web is mostly open, but there are still things out there built to explicitely prevent users from doing what they want, and it seems that even firefox supports this tech.
I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
361–370 of 632 posts
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#362Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a single company can effectively decide whether a bunch of 3rd party sites that they don't control work on your browser, how is that any different? Google is effectively deciding that anyone other than pre-approved browsers can't play Netflix content. If an ISP fully embraced the Net Neutrality repeal and started blocking video content, and someone posted on HN that ISPs were "blocking them from building a streami…
> In the same way, part of building a web browser is having the ability to render web content. If Google can block your custom browser from rendering content, then for all practical purposes they are blocking your ability to build a browser. Eh.. in a way, but not really. It can still work as a web browser but a web site can still render however they'd like based on your user agent. If I made a site today, I could ad…
(Sure some "special purpose" browsers get away without, but they also only Target a very limited audience)
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chromium can download and install the Widevine module, just as Firefox can. The Widevine module, however, is closed source and proprietary.
I use Brave and Netflix and PrimeVideo work fine. How does that happen?
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use Brave and Netflix and PrimeVideo work fine. How does that happen?
It's possible that you are limited to lower resolution. Can you confirm whether you can get any of the 4k streams?
There is no browser support of 4K playback on Amazon at all, irrespective of the DRM situation.
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#366I also find the title to be rather sensational.. "I tried creating a web browser" ^ "Google blocked me" implies that Google blocked them from creating a web browser.. which is not the case.
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#367Right, thats the whole thing that sucks about DRM and these video providers in general. Not only do they want to protect their content from unauthorized viewers, they want to control how it is consumed. Which to me is especially outrageous because netflix and youtube are the only two with a good user experience. (I used to count Hulu, but at some point they really fell off) I would think that Amazon would lead the ch…
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
My point was that, for movies and TV shows at least, this simply doesn't work. The delay is small enough that it's usually negligible (a few hours in my experience). For live events (especially sporting events) of course that's enough to make pirating impractical, but for the new episode of Game of Thrones it's really not much. Furthermore I assume that most of that latency is not due to the time required for pirates…
I think you underestimate how many people prefer to watch the latest episode as it airs.
> not due to the time required for pirates to break the DRM
Even if the DRM is already broken, you can't just ignore the initial time spent to break it.
> until it reaches the public trackers that I use
Let's say you stopped 100 random people on a busy street and asked them what a "public torrent tracker" is. How many do you think would know what that even means? And of those who do, how many do you think would actually be able to download a movie through a public tracker?
This is why Popcorn Time was such a huge hit: it provided effortless access to movie torrents for the masses. Obviously, this also explains the rapid response by content publishers to crush the project.
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#369Earlier 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…
Where did you get the impression that this isn't what they actually want? The goal is control over users, not acquiring non-users (pirates).