Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Netflix on Linux with Chrome

plus.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 61 posts

Re: Netflix on Linux with Chrome

#2

Post by aroman »

i don't think the explanation as to why this works is correct. the poster says it's because Google and Microsoft "have been working closely with Netflix to get the needed DRM code required for HTML5 streaming", yet:

1. the user-agent switch involves adding a Safari identifier (rather than IE or a new Chrome one)

2. at WWDC 2014, Apple announced that it had been working closely with Netflix along those lines, and that the upcoming version of Safari would be able to play Netflix without Silverlight. (And indeed Safari on Yosemite can do just that in the developer previews)

Re: Netflix on Linux with Chrome

#3

Post by mappu »

aroman wrote: post #2

i don't think the explanation as to why this works is correct. the poster says it's because Google and Microsoft "have been working closely with Netflix to get the needed DRM code required for HTML5 streaming", yet: 1. the user-agent switch involves adding a Safari identifier (rather than IE or a new Chrome one) 2. at WWDC 2014, Apple announced that it had been working closely with Netflix along those lines, and that…

That is a chrome UA, it has Chrome/X in it. Safari/X is a compatibility shim.

Re: Netflix on Linux with Chrome

#4

Post by nacs »

aroman wrote: post #2

i don't think the explanation as to why this works is correct. the poster says it's because Google and Microsoft "have been working closely with Netflix to get the needed DRM code required for HTML5 streaming", yet: 1. the user-agent switch involves adding a Safari identifier (rather than IE or a new Chrome one) 2. at WWDC 2014, Apple announced that it had been working closely with Netflix along those lines, and that…

That is the Chrome user agent. It mentions Safari and AppleWebkit for compatibility reasons but it's Chrome.

Windows Chrome user-agent for reference:

  Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/36.0.1985.125 Safari/537.36

Re: Netflix on Linux with Chrome

#5

Post by compedit »

aroman wrote: post #2

i don't think the explanation as to why this works is correct. the poster says it's because Google and Microsoft "have been working closely with Netflix to get the needed DRM code required for HTML5 streaming", yet: 1. the user-agent switch involves adding a Safari identifier (rather than IE or a new Chrome one) 2. at WWDC 2014, Apple announced that it had been working closely with Netflix along those lines, and that…

(And indeed Safari on Yosemite can do just that in the developer previews)

Yep, it's definitely a bit buggy and stops occasionally but it's usable!

Re: Netflix on Linux with Chrome

#6

Post by voyou »

aroman wrote: post #2

i don't think the explanation as to why this works is correct. the poster says it's because Google and Microsoft "have been working closely with Netflix to get the needed DRM code required for HTML5 streaming", yet: 1. the user-agent switch involves adding a Safari identifier (rather than IE or a new Chrome one) 2. at WWDC 2014, Apple announced that it had been working closely with Netflix along those lines, and that…

"the user-agent switch involves adding a Safari identifier"

Well, the default user agent string for Chrome already has a Safari identifier in it, but I don't think Safari user agents have a Chrome identifier. The change being made in the post doesn't add a Safari identifier, because there was one there already, but it does change the OS string to Windows. So I think the explanation in the post is probably right.

Re: Netflix on Linux with Chrome

#7

Post by nmjohn »

Firefox + pipelight + UA switcher has been working flawlessly* for me for the last six months or so.

It doesn't work on chrome anymore unfortunately after the update where they disabled NPAPI plugins.

Native support still can't come soon enough.

Re: Netflix on Linux with Chrome

#9

Post by azernik »

aroman wrote: post #2

i don't think the explanation as to why this works is correct. the poster says it's because Google and Microsoft "have been working closely with Netflix to get the needed DRM code required for HTML5 streaming", yet: 1. the user-agent switch involves adding a Safari identifier (rather than IE or a new Chrome one) 2. at WWDC 2014, Apple announced that it had been working closely with Netflix along those lines, and that…

For a humorous history of why exactly the Chrome UA string claims to be Safari, see this:

http://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/

Re: Netflix on Linux with Chrome

#10

Post by higherpurpose »

aroman wrote: post #2

i don't think the explanation as to why this works is correct. the poster says it's because Google and Microsoft "have been working closely with Netflix to get the needed DRM code required for HTML5 streaming", yet: 1. the user-agent switch involves adding a Safari identifier (rather than IE or a new Chrome one) 2. at WWDC 2014, Apple announced that it had been working closely with Netflix along those lines, and that…

I thought the whole point of "HTML5 DRM" was to be backed by hardware DRM. So are they giving up on that idea for Linux? And if they are, maybe hardware DRM isn't necessary on other platforms either.
Post reply on HN