Firefox 38 Arrives With DRM Required To Watch Netflix 371
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from VentureBeat: Mozilla today launched Firefox 38 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Notable additions to the browser include Digital Rights Management (DRM) tech for playing protected content in the HTML5 video tag on Windows, Ruby annotation support, and improved user interfaces on Android. Firefox 38 for the desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. As always, the Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play.
Note that there is a separate download for Firefox 38 without the DRM support. Our anonymous reader adds links to the release notes for desktop and Android.
Typo: Digital Rights Management (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you meant Digital Restrictions Management. It's a sad day for Mozilla, the w3c, the web as a whole, and open culture. At least there's still the iceweasel fork that doesn't come with this shit.
Re:Typo: Digital Rights Management (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see how supporting playback hurts anyone. If you don't like DRM simply don't play or subscribe to content that uses it. Don't force your ideology on others.
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Because everyone who uses it is legitimizing it and sending the message that it's acceptable and the way forward. That hurts everyone.
Re:Typo: Digital Rights Management (Score:5, Insightful)
Yea, all those Netflix users, are just such a small user base, that they add no legitimacy to DRM at all.
Unlike all those GNU fans who, who seem to complain the fact that Firefox actually needs a VGA display to work.
Re:Typo: Digital Rights Management (Score:5, Funny)
Unlike all those GNU fans who, who seem to complain the fact that Firefox actually needs a VGA display to work.
I for one can't wait until Lynx includes an ASCII-art Netflix plugin. Pretty please?
Re:Typo: Digital Rights Management (Score:5, Interesting)
Because everyone who uses it is legitimizing it and sending the message that it's acceptable and the way forward.
For a rental service like Netflix it is perfectly fine. Aim your guns at Steam, they're the ones that charge you full purchase price for software that will fail when they go out of business. You lot got all upset at DRM back when it was used exclusively for 'permanent' purchases, you forgot to re-evaluate that for rentals.
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Re:Typo: Digital Rights Management (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you get people complaining they should be using the browser instead of their own apps which only work on Windows and OS X, versus a web app which works on Linux as well.
You already get people complaining on mobile that "apps" should go away and be "web pages" instead, and now you're advocating the reverse - that what WAS web pages will now be apps.
Well geez, what happens is you go to Netflix, select your movie, and then it launches the Netflix app, like what iTunes does now. So the web becomes just a portal for apps and to do anything requires installing bunches of apps.
Want to download music? Here it is on iTunes, now install the iTunes app to purchase and download. Want to download movies? Well we have the iTunes app, the Google Play app, the Xbox app, ... just a portal for apps.
I mean, on Windows 8, Netflix has an app. I don't think they have one for OS X, but who knows.
Still, if Netflix did restrict their service to apps, you'll find a bunch of Linux users suddenly complaining that it doesn't work anymore. And probably a bunch of people whose friends or children upgraded them to Linux and are now unable to enjoy their Netflix.
There is no good solution. Mozilla's solution is probably the best - sure it's "unpure" and "not ideal", but it's all about compromise and realizing that users will do what they want to do. If Netflix doesn't work on Firefox, no amount of "DRM is bad" philosophy will let them watch movies. They'll take the path of least resistance, Google 'how to get Netflix to work on firefox" and see the solution is "Install Chrome" or "Use IE" or "Use Safari".
It's all about picking your battles. No point in winning the battle by excluding DRM only to lose the war by being marginalized.
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Steam itself doesn't universally apply DRM - a large number of games on Steam don't have DRM at all, you can just copy the files to wherever you want and run them.
They do offer their own DRM, which is about as non-intrusive as you can get while still being DRM, and they allow publishers to include their own DRM as long as it is noted on the store page. You can be mad about games using DRM, but Valve isn't the one to be angry at.
PS: Valve's talked about issuing a patch to disable the DRM if they ever go out
Re:Typo: Digital Rights Management (Score:5, Insightful)
(and since he's made it clear he'll not go public with the company and they've made double revenue year after year? Not bloody likely)
Unlikely things happen all the time, especially in the video games industry.
...he will issue a patch that will disable calling home on Steam and all Valve games so it really won't matter WTF the other companies think as Steam will just be in offline mode forever.
Yes, the guy who wants to sell you something tells you what you want to hear. I want to see a contract.
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Of course the usual way has just been to use Flash, Java, Silverlight or some other NPAPI plug-in to provide the DRM. That API is 20 years old from Netscape Navigator 2.0 and honestly nobody likes it much. Microsoft has always pushed ActiveX for IE, Chrome prefers their PPAPI they launched 6 years ago and Firefox calls plug-ins a legacy technology. Many mobile browsers don't support traditional plug-ins of any kind. But it's not going to go away as long as it's the only way to play DRM'd content under Firef
Re:Typo: Digital Rights Management (Score:5, Insightful)
There are uses of DRM that I find unacceptable (I won't "buy" a movie from Google Play or iTunes) but Netflix isn't one of them.
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You will die off anyway, at least maybe you could do it with some dignity. Frankly, the inability to watch junk is no real loss. They should be clamoring to keep people on the teat, because after a few years of not watching that crap, I don't really miss it.
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yup, 93% sure you are going to die, whether you think the people who make the rules give a shit about you or not (hint: they don't)
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Good, let them think that, maybe they won't notice that all their DRMed goodies are available DRM-free on torrent sites!
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If all of us good programmers refuse to participate in the DRM culture, then it will die from a lack of anyone with the skill required to work on it. If everyone on the street refused to accept DRM, market forces would have to change. It worked for music (but seems to be coming back with Spotify and the RIAA's amazing nearly billion dollar judgment against the only competitor...).
This is the last grasp for profit and power by a dying industry. They should just have the decency to go ahead and die.
In the mea
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Or maybe the small number of idealistic programmers will refuse to participate in the DRM culture, resulting in them being isolated while the rest of the world moves on without them.
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Big Media has never won. They were late to the game and cannot reverse history. They literally cannot win. Facts and history are not on their side, and this is no different.
Re:disable EME (Score:4, Insightful)
Because mozilla decided to promote DRM instead of a free web, we can look forwards to lots of sites (which used to work) displaying a nag screen with a link to download the "proper" version of firefox, specifically because the DRM version is a free download. They will assume everybody has support available, so there is no penalty to using this crap everywhere.
Or have you not been paying attention to how businesses work these days?
When the fight for freedom is hard, there are many potentially useful strategies. Giving up without a fight and simply handing victory to the enemy is not one of them.
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Firefox tried to push open video formats, like webm, and refused to support H264... yet, after years of fighting they gave up, mostly because MS and Apple refused to support it to push their (patented group) H264 format. Only if google switched youtube to webm and stopped supporting H264 it would be possible to do something like that, but even if the webm was a google format, they never really pushed that change and H264 won this round.
Future video support is the new battleground. Yet W3C is set to accept D
I'm waiting for the pedestrian rights management (Score:2)
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Re:Typo: Digital Rights Management (Score:5, Insightful)
You say that as if it's the only option.
I can only conclude that the issue is not that you don't want to use that capability, it's that you don't want anyone else to be able to use that capability. The contradiction in wanting "open culture" to deny some users options that they desire never crosses your mind, does it?
Re:Typo: Digital Rights Management (Score:5, Insightful)
Wanting "open culture" to not be destroyed by those who promote "closed culture" instead is not a contradiction.
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So you want complete freedom of expression as long as others agree with your vision.
Got it.
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Because big media has captured the government (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is their not room for both the open and closed cultures?
Assuming s/their/there/:
Because the concentrated non-free media use their vast financial resources to lobby governments to make existence harder for free culture.
Big media uses copyright to squelch competition. It has successfully lobbied for successive extensions of the term of copyright, which reduces the chance that a work will enter the public domain while it remains culturally significant. It uses copyright claims to squelch comment on its works and "similarity" claims under copyright to interfere even with creation of original works, as you have no way of telling whether the song you wrote infringes the copyright of some other existing song out there.
Big media uses its massive selling power to convince viewers to purchase player devices designed to play only works created by sufficiently large commercial enterprises, giving it a captive audience. These include such as video game consoles (with their code signing), Blu-ray Disc players (with the requirement of an AACS license for BDMV), home Internet service plans (with their bans on running a home server, enforced through carrier-grade NAT or TOS disconnection), and AM and FM radio receivers (governed by scarce exclusive licenses to transmit). Furthermore, there exists only a finite amount of electromagnetic spectrum. Case in point: People commuting to and from work who are unwilling to pay for expensive cellular data plan have only AM and FM radio as means of discovering new music. When was the last time, for example, that you heard free recordings of free music on radio? (Here, by "free" I mean distributed under a license conforming to the Definition of Free Cultural Works [freedomdefined.org].)
Big media even controls elections. All major U.S. television news outlets share a corporate parent with a major movie studio: CBS is Paramount, ABC is Disney, NBC is Universal, CNN is Warner Bros., and Fox is (duh) Last Century Fox. This gives them enormous power over name recognition [pineight.com], both in campaign contributions and in "in-kind" donations of name recognition through news coverage. It also helps them control what issues voters feel are important to them, as they tend not to report on threats to the existence of free culture unless it's something extraordinarily high-profile like Wikipedia's PROTECTIP protest blackout of 2012 [wikipedia.org].
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I can only conclude that the issue is not that you don't want to use that capability, it's that you don't want anyone else to be able to use that capability. The contradiction in wanting "open culture" to deny some users options that they desire never crosses your mind, does it?
Wanting "open culture" to not be destroyed by those who promote "closed culture" instead is not a contradiction.
In this case, yes it is.
If you are attempting to argue that the very existence of "closed culture" is what is destroying (incorrect tense included) "open culture" - well you are about 50 years late to that lost battle.
Under that definition open culture was destroyed long long ago with zero hope of ever existing again.
If you are not arguing that point, then you are either contradicting yourself at best, or lying/trolling at worse.
Being an additional (optional at that) feature you don't have to use, I don't u
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YOUR data??? Since when watching a movie on a rental service like Netflix makes the movie yours?
I think he's confusing Netflix for iTunes. If Apple goes bye bye the movie/TV purchases you made go kaputski. He's right about that.
What he's wrong about, and what you're right about, is that in Netflix's case DRM is perfectly acceptable since the key problem with DRM is it makes access to data temporary.
Thanks to Netflix, Amazon, and even iTunes, this whole discussion got a lot more complicated.
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The user does not _have_ to use DRM. The user is free to download versions of Firefox that implement the capability or not.
It certainly is a capability. It's a capability for the user who happens to be a content provider. It's a capability fo
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You don't want me to have to use DRM, so you're going to block me from watching the content that I want? Who exactly is the one placing the restrictions here? The media companies who give you the option of watching DRM'd content, or people like yourself who want to remove any choice in the matter?
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I think the idea is to put pressure on the media companies to choose not to use digital restrictions management In the first place.
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The pressure applied by this sort of niche is going to be negligible. For example, Steve Jobs bitching about DRM to the music companies probably did more to combat DRM than any number of anti-DRM activists did.
In the mean time, the activists would be applying pressure on the companies at the expense of anybody who disagrees with them, such as myself. I suspect most people are like me: we don't think DRM is something that we would actively want, but we don't really care if it's there if it stays out of the w
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"The point is that we don't want anyone to _have_ to use DRM. Making it available is one more step in that direction.
DRM is not a capability in the traditional sense. It's not a way for your software to do something. It's a way to prevent the user from using the software as they please, as directed by the content provider. That's a restriction, not a capability."
I would also prefer not to have to use DRM. Unfortunately, DRM exists and prevents me from watching the content I want to watch. Therefore, I will
Or just boycott the major movie studios (Score:4, Insightful)
Because I'd rather pay $8 for an honest license than pirate for the rest of my life.
You appear to think there are two options: use DRM or infringe copyright. There are actually three options: use DRM, infringe copyright, or voluntarily do without.
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Read the blog post [mozilla.org], it is actually very reasonable. Better to have a standardised, secure, removable and optionally installed DRM than a mysterious black-box software by a random company.
Re:Typo: Digital Rights Management (Score:5, Insightful)
Better to have a standardised, secure,
Except it's neither standardised nor secure. All the DRM interface is is a standard interface to a proprietary, non standard closed source module.
mysterious black-box software by a random company
That's EXACTLY what it is. The DRM interface is just an interdace to a mysterious black-box software module from a random company.
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That's right, because you wouldn't want anybody to be able to watch Netflix on your browser. Somebody might want to use it. I mean, what would be next: users wanting http: support?
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Disableable (Score:5, Informative)
At least there's still the iceweasel fork that doesn't come with this shit.
The DRM isn't a closed source part of *firefox*. It's a separate external plugin (like flash, etc.) that runs sandboxed (like chrome) and that can be
disabled and/or removed [mozilla.org] like any other plugins (or you can download a version of the installer that doesn't even pack the DRM module).
You don't need to go as far as Iceweasel.
Then just do as with flash (Score:2)
Yes, you do, to show that you don't want that capability in your web browser.
- HTML5 can advertise whether EME is supported or not.
Surf on Youtube, Netflix, etc. without the CDM plugin, they will see this.
Even if you downloaded Firefox with DRM, but simply disabled it, content providers will be aware.
(Same as surfing the web with "NoScript" and similar Flash blocker)
- if you're on Windows: Download the installer that only contains code by mozilla foundation. Do not download the installer that includes the 3rd party closed source plug-in.
Thus mozilla sees on their download stats that
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You don't need to go as far as Iceweasel.
Yes, you do, to show that you don't want that capability in your web browser. I get that everybody thinks Netflix are the good guys because they free people from the evil cable companies, but they aren't. They are just the next iteration of media companies who try to shove proprietary shit down your throat. Don't let them.
I look at it as a reasonable compromise, I get the content i want on my otherwise open source stack (firefox mate gnu linux) they get their ineffectual blob to protect their 'precious' content that I can containerize. While I don't like their blob I put up with it because I want to watch their content more.
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How is this any different from what has previously been going on with the evil NetFlix DRM being implemented in more general-purpose plugins such as Flash and Silverlight?
The Mozilla Foundation's choice was to either enable it or be "that browser that doesn't work properly with NetFlix".
Don't blame Firefox for this course of action. Blame NetFlix or, ultimatey, the content studios.
Don't like it? You'd be better off boycotting NetFlix than Firefox.
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I think you meant Digital Restrictions Management. ... At least there's still the iceweasel fork that doesn't come with this [...].
Or, you know, an actual build of Firefox from Mozilla that also doesn't come with it, as the article pointed out...
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Firefox can also come without that "shit". From the article:
Mozilla also announced the launch of a separate Firefox download [mozilla.net] that won’t automatically install Adobe’s technology for playing back DRM-wrapped content in the browser.
As stated in TFA, the Mozilla foundation had to choose whether to support DRM in its own code according to HTML standards, or else accept that most users will resort to awful buggy plugins like Flash or simply switch to Chrome, Safari, or Edge to get the content they want so bad. I, myself, prefer Firefox not become a marginalized has-been project with single-digit adoption.
Choose your poison. There's a silver lining in DRM over browser: it enc
CDM vs Generic plugin (Score:2)
the third is no DRM like they have had until now. If somebody clicks on DRM content they can have a "Do you wish to download a plugin to play this [read license details here]?" box.
...which might as well download a huge piece of software, that not only plays the DRMed video, but also is massively filled with spyware. (see the video players that some porn site used to ask people to install)
*That* I would consider much more poison than firefox 38.
What Mozilla have introduced is an API that supports using a 3rd party CDM plugin. this plugin is here only to decrypt video data, and is running inside a sandbox that blocks it from anything else (no filesystem nor network access, according to
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Don't like it, don't use it. There's a version of Mozilla available without the plugin. Your beliefs should not infringe on my ability to enjoy the content I want.
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I like Silverlight in that it sucks and makes DRM hard to use, which helps hasten the demise of digital restrictions management by pissing off users and causing the bastards pushing it to lose revenue. Free Software based companies have to resist -- who else will? We've taken over the entire computing world, and now we should use our power for good by refusing to support DRM or anti-features of any kind. If Linux doesn't support RestrictedBoot for example, Dell couldn't sell any servers with it enabled.
How does it work ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there an explanation of how this works ? At the end of the rendering pipeline shouldn't there be an unencrypted frame for display, and couldn't somebody it just grab it from there ?
Re:How does it work ? (Score:4, Insightful)
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it's stupid DRM, not real encryption (Score:4, Interesting)
according to all what I've read:
Yup, they have indeed implemented it this way (DRM is mainly a small external plugins. Firefox feeds encrypted stream into it, and get decrypted stream out. Plugin runs in a sand box and isn't allowed to do anything else)
But if you read the original EME specification, there's another possible implementation:
- it's also possible to write an EME plugin that is entirely in charge of presenting the decrpyted video on screen. Firefox feeds encrypted data into 3rd party plugin, plugin it self access screen and displays video on it.
That would be a clear violation of the sandbox that 3rd party EME plugins are currently run in, but in theory the specifications offer such alternative.
Still, even such an approach is open to screen-grabbing so it's just as useless as the current implementation and only opens security risks (as the 3rd party EME plugin won't be inside a sandbox restricting to only stream IO and decryption).
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I think that's the point of having the DRM module closed source and undocumented.
That's not much of a deterrent, if the interface is documented, and you can feed an encrypted stream in, and clear stream comes out.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:dreams over, the manifesto is dead. (Score:4, Insightful)
DRM = encryption + key obfuscation.
If DRM was merely encryption that would be great. Then we could save the encrypted streams to our hard disk, then play them while on vacation. Or we could copy those encrypted streams for time shifting. We could decrypt them, then re-encode them into another format for playing on another device. Or take fair-use protected clips from them.
The goal of DRM is to prevent the the end-user from doing the things listed above. But encryption alone isn't enough to do that. You need a way to give the key to the user, but obfuscate the key so that they can only use it limited circumstances. It's infuriating to the user.
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If a particular type of content cannot be monetized, then it will not exist on the Internet because the Internet is not "free" as in costs $0.
Sometimes I think people equate freedom with the ability to take from others as much as they want and not the true meaning that you have all options available to you and offered equally to all.
Just DRM on windows??? (Score:2)
What has really changed with here? (Score:4, Insightful)
Before this new version of Firefox, the DRM was delivered via Silverlight. Either way, you are running a closed-source binary blob that handles DRM.
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What has changed is the capability of the binary blob. The blob runs in a sandbox that has no network or file system access. All it can do is decrypt.
I posted once but... (Score:3)
Instead of focusing on Firefox, let's focus on Netflix for a moment. Who the hell needs Netflix to pirate? 99% of things on Netflix are published elsewhere first. Netflix is equivalent to syndication--the guys that play stuff after it's already been premiered.
People target the services that premier shows for privacy. They don't wait 2 years for it to show up on Netflix to THEN pirate it. They go to the source.
Lastly, Netflix already rents out DVDs--which can be easily pirated and show up long before they hit online Netflix!
The only thing this could protect would be Netflix originals. So my point is this: It's either to fulfill contractual B.S. with their media providers, or, it's a complete waste of money that accomplishes nothing. My money would be on the former, though, because lots of stupid things like this are the result of "pleasing the customer."
EME is not just Netflix DRM (Score:3)
There are some positive aspects to the Encrypted Media Extensions API. It does provide some DRM options for companies like Netflix, which isn't great, but it can also enhance the security of personal media files. It will enable a web app to let you upload an encrypted video, then stream it from their server to your computer without having to download the entire thing and decrypt it -- without any browser plugin.
So if you really don't want anyone being able to see your personal videos (not just Netflix's videos), this thing isn't all bad.
Where was the choice? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, my Firefox did the whole pop-up thing with a message saying that it was urgent that I upgraded my browser for security reasons.
Did they offer me the DRM free version? NO.
Did they tell me that this next version would be infested with DRM? NO.
If the update was so urgent, why is the DRM free version dated 8th of may and it is now 13th May, it can't have been very urgent can it.
And why is it that when I went to about Firefox on the help menu it checked again for an update and said that none was available when Firefox had already told me that an update was available? FFS.
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CDM on Chromium (Score:2)
there are even tutorial online to enable the google chrome CDM on chromium.
You get your usual chromium, with the EME being the only external 3rd party binary piece of software.
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If you read the article they are already providing that option.
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2015/05/12/update-on-digital-rights-management-and-firefox/
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Yes, that is covered in the 4th sentence of the summary.
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We're talking about Firefox and not Chrome.
separate plugin (Score:4, Informative)
so, do we now have open source firefox and non open source firefox
The DRM isn't a closed source part of *firefox*. It's a separate external plugin (like flash, etc.) that runs sandboxed (like chrome) and that can be
disabled and/or removed [mozilla.org] like any other plugins (or you can download a version of the installer that doesn't even pack the DRM module).
You won't have a separate opensource and closed source firefox.
The choice is whether to use or not the external 3rd party binary plugin (juste like flash, again).
It's just that the default installer of Firefox for Windows does pack the .DLL together with Firefox for end-user's convenience. But as mentionned, you can download an installer without it.
And even if you install it, it's up to you to use or not this piece of closed source software.
Re:non open source firefox? (Score:4)
I think what we have is clear examples of people who read the article and those who did not.
completely external (Score:2)
it's a completely external plugin (similar to flash).
You can just as well run this plug-in on Iceweasel, just as you could also run stock Firefox without it (the plugin can be disabled, and there's an installer that doesn't even include it).
sandbox (Score:3)
because the API between firefox and the CDM are completely different.
usual plugins use NPAPI
CDM for EME-support runs inside a special sandbox that restricts it. CDM plugins are prevented from filesystem and network accesses (unlike Flash, for example)
Some end users do want video (Score:5, Informative)
rather than fixing bugs
For some users, "I can't watch Netflix, your browser is broken !" is an important bug enough.
At least providing a way to install an optional 3rd party plugin to handle DRM, *and* provide a sandbox that restricts the plugin to only decrypt the encrypted data stream it receives (no file-system access. no network access) isn't such a bad idea given the insistance of end user to access restricted content.
It's not as if Firefox itself has become closed source.
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I love that the MS hatred is so strong on /. that MS is somehow blamed for the bad stuff that MOZILLA does, as if MS went over to Mozilla HQ and forced them to adopt DRM:
"ADOPT THIS DRM OR WE'LL BREAK YOUR FACE, MAN!!"
"Okay, okay, we'll do it! Just stop hurting us!"
"THAT'S RIGHT, BITCH! MICROSOFT 4EVER!!"
Re:Microsoft is killing Firefox. (Score:4, Informative)
The scenario you describe is pretty much how it worked, with Google and Netflix doing most of the forcing, and Microsoft only helping out a little bit.
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Yep this should be an easy crack, with most of the source code being available. Firefox 38 will also be known as Netflix Video Ripper 1.0!
Still, it would've been better to leave the DRM where it belongs, in plugins to be installed by each user who wants to have their rights managed.
Re:Get cracking (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, it would've been better to leave the DRM where it belongs, in plugins to be installed by each user who wants to have their rights managed.
Which is exactly how the standard works - except now the plug-in interface is standardized. So much nerdwhine over nothing with the HTML5 DRM stuff. Feel free to grab the "can't watch Netflix" version if it makes you happy. Not needing Silverlight (or Flash, or some other exploit delivery engine) makes me happy.
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Which is exactly how the standard works - except now the plug-in interface is standardized. So much nerdwhine over nothing with the HTML5 DRM stuff. Feel free to grab the "can't watch Netflix" version if it makes you happy. Not needing Silverlight (or Flash, or some other exploit delivery engine) makes me happy.
That's how I see it. I'll be happy to be able to watch Netflix on my HTPC in the same quality as a streaming device. It seems like we may have more flexibility in how we can get our Netflix. As far as I can tell, and I certainly am no expert, no existing feature or function of Firefox is lost.
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Not needing Silverlight (or Flash, or some other exploit delivery engine) makes me happy.
Flash at least caches, but from what I've seen HTML5 does not. I hate the frequent pauses and low quality resolution from streaming. Caching is the most fundamental and stable fix.
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Flash at least crashes
Fixed that for you.
Re:Get cracking (Score:5, Insightful)
Previously, there was some hesitation to use this crap thanks to this lack of standardization. Now, thanks to this idiotic move by Mozilla this type of DRM will be used, and if you think it only apply to Netflix - or only apply to video - you haven't been paying attention.
Now that it is possible to for businesses to claim that "almost all of our potential customers support DRM", it will be used in many places. Remember the pages that show an image of text instead of just putting the text in the page? Well, get ready for the video equivalent the first time someone gets paranoid because browsers have a save-as feature. Besides, once DRM for one type of content is in place, the other industries will cry "equal access".
All of you who are "ok" with this, or are thinking only of convenience - your selfish view of the world is a big part of why this is happening. You should be fighting this, if you give a damn about having an free an open internet in the future. Unfortunately, you're probably going to mod me down and go back to cheering about how you get to watch movies in your browser, and I hope you enjoy fighting the far more difficult battles in the future, because you didn't stop this crap when it was still small.
Re:Get cracking (Score:5, Informative)
I hope you enjoy fighting the far more difficult battles in the future, because you didn't stop this crap when it was still small.
The majority of internet traffic is DRMd video streams - has been for years. A standards committee has no power to tell the vendors what to do; instead their job is to write down what the big vendors are already doing, so that everyone else can interoperate.
Use the right tool for the job, man. If you want non-DRMd video, you're supposed to use a torrent client, not a web browser. Not every tool has to solve every problem, you know - let each be good for its purpose instead.
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Maybe you should start paying attention to what's going on in the world. Major power-grabs are happening and you think it's about movies, simply because the people trying to grab power said so. I don't give a damn about movies or Netflix. What I do care about is legal precedent, the establishing of standards that will be used in other areas, the erosion of rights like the 1st-sale doctrine, and businesses that demand you weaken your computer security.
If this looks like a dystopian SF novel to you , maybe yo
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You should have tho grab the "restricts my rights" version if that makes you happy while everyone else gets DRM-free Firefox by default. Mozilla shouldn't be helping to spread DRM by default-installing it for everyone. Not having a DRM plugin installed makes me happy (especially since it could still turn out to be an exploit delivery engine).
Re: Get cracking (Score:3)
Because of the limited scope (doesn't need to be able to open network sockets, access files etc.) the browser can sandbox it more effectively.
It *IS* a plugin. (Score:5, Informative)
Still, it would've been better to leave the DRM where it belongs, in plugins to be installed by each user who wants to have their rights managed.
That's exactly the case right now.
Firefox only provides a sandbox into which the 3rd party CDM plugin will be run.
Encrypted stream goes in.
Decrypted stream goes out.
Nothing else is authorised for this plugin.
It's more or less the same situation as Flash (it's not firefox itself that is playing the flash content), except with a much better and way much more restrictive sandbox.
They are merely providing 1 installer packing 1 CDM by adobe inside for end user convenience.
But there's even an installer with only the mozilla code, without 3rd party pluging if you want.
Yep this should be an easy crack, with most of the source code being available. Firefox 38 will also be known as Netflix Video Ripper 1.0!
Actually not. Firefox doesn't handle decryption it self. Only provides the sandbox into which to run it.
To rip Netflix, you'll need to go the other way around:
- creat your own video downloader, that simply harness any of the 3rd party CDM plugins compatible with Netflix (Firefox use a CDM by adobe, Google Chrome uses another by Widevine).
- as Firefox basically restricts their to only function as a decryption filter, you need to provide code that feeds the data into the plugin, and code that package the decrypted stream into a MKV.
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Is there anything that stops someone getting the source and writing a function to simply dump out the decrypted stream? If so, then this is surely completely useless.
If not, how so?
Re:But... Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, no, you're missing some steps:
1) The studios (Fox, Paramount, Sony, etc.) tell Netflix that without DRM, Netflix is going to have its own original series to stream AND THAT'S ALL.
2) Netflix decides it might be wise to include D-R-M unless they want to go B-A-N-K-R-U-P-T.
3) The major browser companies all adopt DRM too, since no one wants to be the one browser that doesn't work with Netflix
4) You, the user, streams movies from your browser.
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When did Netflix start sending DRM-free video? (Except maybe their original serieses.)
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I don't know anyone with a connection fast enough to watch Netflix. There's a reason they mail so many DVDs.
It's become necessary because of the media size for HD video. Even using BlueRay there simply aren't enough ponies to ship all the disks to carry the content.
CDM is sandboxed (Score:3)
Actually, support for EME *is* implemented as a sandbox, into which the 3rd party CDM plugin runs.
sandbox block access to filesystem and network.
only encrypted stream goes in. only decrypted stream goes out.
Okay, it's not as pervasive as Google Chrome's sandbox (they tend to sandbox as many other plugins as possible), but it makes the situation much better than what was before with Flash.
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And this is the mindset that will eternally keep Linux from ever having any major inroads on the desktop.
Fine with me. That makes it an uninteresting target for malware.
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So where are you doing your decryption ?