Chromium and Netflix

[rdragonrydr]

Hello. I am attempting to watch netflix from Chromium, as I do not wish to use Chrome (I can as a last resort... but...). about://plugins shows widevine CDM, and I installed some nss packages.

When visiting Netflix, it tells me to install Silverlight. I suspect that all the things I need are present, but am not certain, and for some reason Netflix will not even try to use HTML 5.

Can you help me with the following:

Do I need to tinker with the user agent so that Netflix thinks I am using Chrome, not Chromium? (If so, how do I do this? I've heard there's a --user-agent=" " argument for running Chromium for command line? Is it correct?)

How do I get Chromium working with NSS or whatever is needed? I am getting conflicting messages here. Some say it can't be done, some say it can, but I can't seem to find a checklist for this. Can I have some detailed instructions please?

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

[carl4926]

I don't use Netflix but I understand some people actually use Firefox for Windows in Wine with the Windows flash player for FF

[rdragonrydr]

Netflix has stopped using Flash entirely. It either uses Silverlight or HTML5. There's a bunch of stuff out there that talks about how Netflix works with linux autmagically if you install Chrome. Chrome is about the same as Chromium, but Chromium is open-source. It also may have some issues with Widevine, but Ubuntu may have fixed them for its build. I can't tell if it works or not, since my Netflix is apparently not even trying to use HTML5.

Note: My chromium version (in the about page) says it is 50.something. It seems to be newer than most common versions, and this is because of Ubuntu for some reason (It says in the package page that this is the version as well).

[raptir]

Netflix has stopped using Flash entirely. It either uses Silverlight or HTML5. There's a bunch of stuff out there that talks about how Netflix works with linux autmagically if you install Chrome. Chrome is about the same as Chromium, but Chromium is open-source. It also may have some issues with Widevine, but Ubuntu may have fixed them for its build. I can't tell if it works or not, since my Netflix is apparently not even trying to use HTML5.

Note: My chromium version (in the about page) says it is 50.something. It seems to be newer than most common versions, and this is because of Ubuntu for some reason (It says in the package page that this is the version as well).

Well, current chromium is 53, so that's not a particularly new build.

There are two factors to this. First, as you mentioned, is that Chromium is not intended to work with WidevineCDM. I know that someone made a build for Arch that supports Widevine, but I honestly do not know if the Ubuntu package has proper support for it. Just because it's in your plugins doesn't mean it's actually working correctly.

The other aspect could be that Netflix is expecting only Chrome to support the HTML5 DRM (since Chromium built from source with no modifications does not support it) and will only try to use it if your browser is Chrome. To test that you could change your useragent to Chrome and see if it works. Now, if it doesn't work, and still asks for Silverlight, that doesn't necessarily mean that Netflix is not checking for the HTML5 video support. Netflix doesn't throw an error message if your browser does not properly support the HTML5 DRM. The possible paths are:

Test HTML5 -> HTML5 works -> Play video
Test HTML5 -> HTML5 doesn't work -> Test Silverlight -> Silverlight works -> Play Video
Test HTML5 -> HTML5 doesn't work -> Test Silverlight -> Silverlight doesn't work -> Error message to install silverlight

[rdragonrydr]

How can I switch the user agent to Chrome to tes this? I believe I know the command, but I don't know the agent. Otherwise, how can I tell if Widevine works?

I suspected that the Silverlight is a fallback, but I am not certain what to do about it. I hope the user agent will help. If not, does anyone know how to recompile to work with Widevine?

[QDR06VV9]

Just passing through but have a look here: https://disqus.com/home/discussion/w..._1404_or_1410/
And more Here: http://www.webupd8.org/2014/09/nss-u...ive-html5.html

[SeijiSensei]

As far as I know, Chromium cannot support Netflix because it doesn't include the DRM features in Chrome itself.

I watch Netflix using Firefox with Pipelight installed. You'll also need to spoof your browser's User-Agent string. For that I use UAControl with this string:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:41.0) Gecko/20131011 Firefox/41.0

[QDR06VV9]

As far as I know, Chromium cannot support Netflix because it doesn't include the DRM features in Chrome itself.

I watch Netflix using Firefox with Pipelight installed. You'll also need to spoof your browser's User-Agent string. For that I use UAControl with this string:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:41.0) Gecko/20131011 Firefox/41.0

I use Chromium with Netfilx.
But that said SeijiSensei's advice is good also.
Regards

[SeijiSensei]

I use Chromium with Netfilx.

I thought the differences between Chromium and Chrome had to do with the proprietary features that couldn't be exposed in the open-source version. I figured DRM would be high on that list. But you're right. I could connect to Netflix and log in without any extra effort using Chromium on my Kubuntu 14.04 system.

I try to stick with Firefox as much as possible, but not having to install pipelight might lead me to Chromium for a few places like Netflix.

After testing, I've found that Chromium doesn't work with Amazon Instant; it tells me to use Chrome. It doesn't work with Hulu Plus either. Chromium does work with Flash-based services like Crunchyroll.

[rdragonrydr]

Runrickus, what did you mean that you use Chromium with Netflix? Does that mean you can play videos? If so, can you please tell me how?

I can log in to netflix, but when attempting to play, it fails and wants Silverlight.

Chromium already has the widevine .so files, so I just need to find out if I need to change my user agent (Say, maybe Netflix blocks non-chrome browsers for HTML5 even if they have all the plugins)? What user-agent string do I need to spoof the latest Google Chrome?

How can I tell if Widevine is working at all, and if not, I've heard about patches to Chromium to allow it to use the plugin, but don't know how to do it. How can I tell if I need to, and how do I do so?


Thanks for your patience.