Hacker News Reader

Comment by bevr1337 | Hacker News Reader

They "caved" because it's a browser for humans and lots of humans stream TV. I don't miss the daily "how can I watch Netflix on Ubuntu?" posts in different communities. Users can disable Widevine in FF.

View on HN

The answer should be "go sail the high seas."

I’d be surprised if close to 100% of those users aren’t using Chrome, not Firefox for any streaming purposes.

You'd be surprised if less-than 99% of Firefox users didn't switch to Chrome to stream television? Am I understanding?

I think the number of people who care about streaming DRM media probably already used Chrome at the time of the EME stuff being added to Firefox.

People do this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44294402

So they use Firefox 99% of the time and then if they encounter the rare thing that requires DRM they treat it like toxic waste that has to run in an isolated sandbox, which doesn't need to be the same browser they use for anything else.

The only other sensible option is to get out the reversing toolkit and break the DRM.

It's unlikely we can extrapolate market share and user-base data from individuals who self-select into discussing DRM on Hackernews.

Aren't those the only people who don't already use Chrome? "People who hate privacy-invading stuff like DRM" is pretty much the Firefox user base.

Better than extrapolating market share from your feelings.

There is absolutely no way I would be able to convince my parents to do streaming that way, and I'm reasonably certain that they're a much more representative set of the community than people who hang around HN.

You absolutely would and it's the default way that normal people actually do it, which is to isolate Netflix into some kind of TV or HDMI stick instead of putting it in a browser on a PC.

Sure, when they are at home. They use laptops to watch Netflix when they travel, and I am quite confident that if Netflix didn't work on Firefox they would assume it is broken and then switch to Chrome.

Your parents are likely to use the Netflix app on the TV instead of FF anyway.

Cool story. Except you still can't watch Netflix on Ubuntu unless you are OK being a second class citizen who is only allowed resolutions that may have been acceptable a century ago. So congratulations, FF sold out for nothing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com