Watching Netflix On Ubuntu Natively

[Opcode]

Sauce

 

It’s now possible to stream video content from Netflix on a Linux desktop natively in recent development builds of Google Chrome. How?

Earlier this year the web standards body the ‘World Wide Web Consortium’ (commonly known as the W3C) controversially pushed forward with plans to introduce support for protected content (‘DRM’) through HTML5 Video through the Encrypted Media Extension specification.

Google describes EME as “a JavaScript API that enables web applications to interact with DRM systems, in order to allow playback of encrypted media.” This works without the need to hand off to or make use of bloated third-party plugins like Silverlight or Adobe Flash.

Success has so far been replicated by Arch, Gentoo and Ubuntu 14.10 Alpha users (both 32-bit and 64-bit builds). 

I've personally been waiting for this to happen for a while now. Looks like Netflix will work right out of the box on Ubuntu 14.10 with the user-agent switcher.

[Fulgrim]

This was mentioned before, but you seem to have a different method i think? Cba reading.

[Opcode]

This was mentioned before, but you seem to have a different method i think? Cba reading.

That's using 3'rd party software such as Pipelight or Netflix Desktop which both run Silverlight through WINE. This is finally true native support for Linux, all you need is a Beta or Development branch of Chrome.

[mvitkun]

This was mentioned before, but you seem to have a different method i think? Cba reading.

A.That's a guide, under the Guides and Tutorials subsection of the forum, for installing Silverlight via Pipelight on Linux.

B.This is a post, in the Tech News and Reviews subsection of the forum, that details a new Netflix feature that works through a new release of Chrome allowing Netflix to stream video natively through HTML5 on Linux without the need for proprietary software like Microsoft's Silverlight framework which has no official Linux release and no plans for a Linux release.

 

I've actually been searching for updates for the past few days on HTML5 based streaming on Netflix, because they announced it a while back and then didn't say anything for a while.

[LAwLz]

I don't think this is good. It only works because DRM is now part of the HTML standard, which is awful. Not only that, but it only works in Chrome?

Do we have any info about how EME is implemented in Chrome (haven't gotten that far into the video yet)? Since Mozilla was basically forced to include it they decided to implement it in the least harmful way possible and be very transparent about it. As far as I can tell, Google has not done anything similar.

 

Edit: I wonder how long it will take for Google to ruin YouTube with this. I am sure many image hosts will be interested in this as well.

[Rassilon]

Finally

[Misanthrope]

I don't think this is good. It only works because DRM is now part of the HTML standard, which is awful. Not only that, but it only works in Chrome?

Do we have any info about how EME is implemented in Chrome (haven't gotten that far into the video yet)? Since Mozilla was basically forced to include it they decided to implement it in the least harmful way possible and be very transparent about it. As far as I can tell, Google has not done anything similar.

 

Edit: I wonder how long it will take for Google to ruin YouTube with this. I am sure many image hosts will be interested in this as well.

Oh don't worry, they'll ruin youtube (and twitch) with automatic DMCA notice takedowns far before they have the chance to ruin it with draconic DRM anyways.

[PortentousLad]

Damn it I could have made this post, ah not fast enough.

However there's an article about it on OMGUbuntu saw it there yesterday. Nice How-to-Netflix-on-Ubuntu

[totjup5]

Kind of sad that you couldn't do this before.... I guess that's just another reason not to use Linux for anything but running servers.

[Socky]

Wait you needed 3rd party software to watch Netflix on Linux before? Wow. Glad this is fixed because I really do want to switch to Ubuntu.

[Linus_torvalds]

Netflix is not in my country  

 

I have ubuntu 14.04 LTS

[Opcode]

Wait you needed 3rd party software to watch Netflix on Linux before? Wow. Glad this is fixed because I really do want to switch to Ubuntu.

Yep, you needed Silverlight which ran through a custom built version of WINE. A few developers made Netflix Desktop (the first way to run Netflix on Linux, and it was terrible) and then another came out with Pipelight (was much better implementation with a chrome extension, but still ran WINE and Silverlight in the background). Netflix has been moving over to HTML5 streaming for a while now and it's been possible on Safari and Windows 8.1 for a little while now. Tho now you can finally run it on Linux without WINE and Silverlight. All you need is a distro with an updated version of the Network Security Services package (this will come out of the box with Ubuntu 14.10) and a user-agent switcher in chrome and you're ready to go. You just spoof a compatible platform and wala you're watching Netflix through pure HTML5.

[Socky]

Yep, you needed Silverlight which ran through a custom built version of WINE. A few developers made Netflix Desktop (the first way to run Netflix on Linux, and it was terrible) and then another came out with Pipelight (was much better implementation with a chrome extension, but still ran WINE and Silverlight in the background). Netflix has been moving over to HTML5 streaming for a while now and it's been possible on Safari and Windows 8.1 for a little while now. Tho now you can finally run it on Linux without WINE and Silverlight. All you need is a distro with an updated version of the Network Security Services package (this will come out of the box with Ubuntu 14.10) and a user-agent switcher in chrome and you're ready to go. You just spoof a compatible platform and wala you're watching Netflix through pure HTML5.

Too much effort