[arch-general] Netflix in Arch?

[Niko Rosvall]

On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 10:19:49AM +0200, Sebastiaan Lokhorst wrote:
> Just because there still seems to be some confusion:
> 
> Plugin-free Netflix requires Embedded Media Extensions (EME).[1] This is
> supported by all major closed-source browsers: Internet Explorer, Safari
> and Chrome.
> This includes Chrome on Arch (available in the AUR), without the need for
> any user-agent hacking or plugins.
> 
> EME however requires a closed source component, therefore it is NOT
> available in open-source browsers, such as Chromium and Firefox, and likely
> _never_ will be.
> In the future, it might be possible to use some kind of closed-source
> plugin to support this in open-source browsers, but there is none at the
> moment. (there was some discussion about this with Firefox, see [1] for
> more details)
> 
> So basically, at the moment you have two options to use Netflix on Arch:
> (1) install a closed-source browser (i.e. Chrome) with EME, where it will
> work out-of-the-box, or (2) install a open-source browser with all kinds of
> hackery such as Pipelight.
> 
> I hope that this clears things up.
> Sebastiaan
> 
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encrypted_Media_Extensions

Somewhat offtopic and I don't want to start any flamewars, but things
like EME makes me really sad. 

Still today, when open source and Free Software is gaining more and more
attraction, companies are developing these proprietary systems. Now with
EME available, even the Internet is becoming "poisoned". If Netflix
wanted, I'm sure there would be a way to stream videos without this and
still keep the company profitable. Of course, it's not Netflix
alone. Movie companies are probably pushing this a lot to limit
unauthorized copying. Which again, I think, could be done in some other
way than developing proprietary crap.

-- 
Niko Rosvall
http://www.ideabyte.net