I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by fixermark » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

gsnedders wrote: post #26

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.

No, if the Director had overridden the majority of the membership, the browser vendors would've shipped something anyway, and the YouTubes and Netflixes of the world would be using it anyway.

Essentially. The money gated behind a closed DRM solution is so large that the w3c ran the risk of becoming an irrelevant standards body for this space if they didn't comply with what their members wanted to do.

It's sub-optimal, but I don't think an optimal solution actually existed. A standards board divorced from reality is no better than no standard at all.

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

#32

Post by akhilcacharya » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

johndavidback wrote: post #13

_bxg1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right in general, but the OP's browser seems fairly useless without it

Yes - reading the post it appears OP's specific value proposition is keeping DRM'd videos in sync. This reminds me of watching Dawson's Creek with my girlfriend in 8th grade - we'd call eachother on the phone and watch the show at the same time. Anyway this would be the browser version of that, from what I understand.

The hack some people have is to just stream the browser.

I do that sometimes using Parsec and it works reasonably with GPU hardware encoding.

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

#33

Post by dec0dedab0de » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

Right, 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 charge for an open standard for distributing video which handles DRM, subscription, pay per view, etc. and then all the non-Netflixes would publish to that standard, and let player applications thrive. Even when using a Roku it feels like each app is completely different. And most of them suck. Imagine if in 1985 Prism, HBO, and Showtime all manufactured their own TVs and required you to use them, but they all had wildly different layouts and remotes.

The idea of syncing up two video streams is awesome, I can see people enjoying that, and it would encourage people to pay for whatever services their friends have. Though it does sound a bit similar to rabb.it

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

#34

Post by nyuszika7h » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

jchw wrote: post #23

thefounder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youtube has DRM and has nothing to do with WebM. It's just that not all the content is DRM-ed.

Wait really? With what videos does YouTube depend on Widevine DRM?

Google Play Movies & TV, which is also available from YouTube, uses Widevine DRM. However, freely available videos and even YouTube Premium Originals do not use DRM.

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

#35

Post by fixermark » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

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.

Yep. We optimized having Netflix over having another browser out there with a new feature-set.

For basically all the users, this works great; demand for a new browser is low, for streaming media pretty high.

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

#36

Post by gpvos » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

sroussey wrote: post #8

NeekGerd wrote: post #2

Had the same issue with an Electron app of mine, published on the AppStore with 10k users or so. It's been more than a year that I'm in contact with Google/Widevine, waiting for my license. This is a nightmare. It's such an obvious gatekeeping mechanism.

What license?

Widevine.

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

#37

Post by derefr » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 2:51 PM UTC

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.

It was never gonna happen; as soon as Intel introduced SGX, any DRM-producing company that wasn’t taking advantage of it would be seen as failing their shareholders. Even if Flash had died on schedule without browsers offering a native browser-DOM DRMed-content API, DRMed-content producers would just have jumped to another tech the DRM vendors sold them.

My guess is that, if browser vendors wouldn’t have played ball, the DRM vendors would have worked with one of the JRE vendors to optimize the Java applet runtime, and contributed to performance improvements on the browser side for all the open browsers, such that “Java applet” would no longer be a scary heavy-weight thing nobody wants their browser to launch. That would be (one of) the implicit threats hanging over browser vendors: if you don’t cooperate, we’ll take your control over innovation on the web away by refocusing it on an improved Java experience.

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

#38

Post by sergiotapia » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 2:51 PM UTC

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.

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

#39

Post by gsnedders » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

ohithereyou wrote: post #27

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 exists partly to take the blame off of its members for the decisions that they agree to unanimously. Blame the W3C members for their decision to screw the user.

The W3C membership nowhere near unanimously approved the advancement of the EME specification to Recommendation; that much has been said publicly by various people over the course of the past few years.

The majority of the membership was in favour, definitely, but it wasn't unanimous. Some members I think it's predictable how they voted (MPAA may have voted in favour, EFF may have voted against); others less so.

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

#40

Post by cmsimike » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

I don't know if this will be helpful to you but an open source media player, Kodi, recently added support for Netflix in the latest version of the app (by implementing a DRM engine for people to use).

This requires the use of the widevine library which then downloads things behind the scenes upon use (I believe). https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=329767

I can't imagine Google gave the OK to Kodi to use widevine so maybe you can see what they did?