# Firefox & DRM



## Alain De Vos (May 25, 2022)

What is the status of Firefox & DRM (non-linux) ?


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## VladiBG (May 25, 2022)

DRM is closed source and requires signed version of the Firefox (no custom builds from ports). There's no binaries provided for DRM like Widevine for FreeBSD.


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## shkhln (May 25, 2022)

Where exactly this signed version requirement is specified?


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## VladiBG (May 25, 2022)

Actually it's not required for the browser to be signed but it's limited to the video quality when you are playing on device which doesn't support VMP









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## Bluey (May 25, 2022)

Alain De Vos said:


> What is the status of Firefox & DRM (non-linux) ?


I presume you mean FreeBSD when you say (non-Linux), since Firefox supports Widevine DRM on other platforms. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-drm

Linuxulator/Brave is working for DRM content on FreeBSD. https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/linuxulator-how-to-install-brave-linux-app-on-freebsd-13-0.78879/

Presumably Firefox could be made to work in a similar way?








						Linuxulator Firefox 68
					

I`m not going to run it as root, just trying to get the netflix running.  Even if we disregard security concerns, running Linux apps under root results in various files being created under /compat/linux. This is generally undesirable since those files will mask files with the same name outside...




					forums.freebsd.org


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## Deleted member 70435 (May 26, 2022)

there would have to be another way not through DRM is something that gets in the way a lot because it's a standard, stupid that digital media has adhered


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## freezr (May 26, 2022)

The only reason why DRM exists is not to prevent piracy but to control consumers...

Widevine is available on X86/AMD64 only for Win/Mac/Linux.
On ARM is officially supported for iOS, ChromeOS and Android; working on the user-agent you may install Vivaldi on some boards and let some streaming services believe that you are a ChromeOS platform.

I don't think there are particular reasons, beside the monetary one, to not allow other OS the have access to DRM content, even though I despise DRM, what I realized the point here is controlling how consumers must consume those content and on which platforms... Disgusting...


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## jbo (May 26, 2022)

freezr said:


> The only reason why DRM exists is not prevent piracy but to control consumer...


Would you like to elaborate on this opinion?


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## freezr (May 26, 2022)

jbodenmann really? 

First point, piracy continues to exist despite any-whatever DRM... The most common way today is to piracy the box tv itself rather than decrypt the signal which by the way, I bet, can be broken...

The point here is the streaming providers want have control on the way consumers can access their content... Especially outside the computer space, which is already limited to specific CPU and OS, however there's no reason to limit people to access to your content since those people are willing to pay to consume it, but is most convenient have control on how consumers access to your content rather than make it accessible everywhere to anyone.

For instance these small box TVs (and newer SmartTVs) are plenty of ads that you can't avoid despite you are paying for services which are supposed to be ads free. I used to have a FireTV which I modded with a custom launcher, but ultimately Amazon decided to put an end to them, and with a recent update it made the use of these launchers almost impracticable. Now I have to watch content that I pay for the way Amazon imposes, in one word: control. The standard interface have ads and information about services that I do not use, that I do not want, and so on... It is so annoying that I am thinking to retire those devices and use a small X86 pc to watch exclusively the services I pay for the way I want, not the way they want. 

Piracy has never been an issue for anyone, but controlling is a fixation for a lot of stakeholders whether those are corporations or government institutions, most modern businesses are built upon control and surveillance.

Linux, despite the opensource, is on the hand of corps, they have full control over it, but those corporations do not have any direct power on any BSD as they have on Linux, mostly because the BSD license... and this is funny because the BSD license is born to promote businesses actually keeps corporations quite far away.

If these providers can't control the way consumers get access to their content they won't put any effort to make their content available in such alternatives platform.


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## jbo (May 26, 2022)

freezr said:


> _*jbodenmann*_ really?


That question seems to come with some sort of negativity attached to it. I am not sure I understand why. I'm merely asking to hear your opinion because I like to hear opinions of different people with different backgrounds. That doesn't mean that I don't have one myself, or that I either agree or disagree with yours or your initial statement I followed-up on  

As such: Thank you for sharing your opinion.


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## Bluey (May 26, 2022)

I don't think it is about control. Just simple business calculus = money.

Netflix knows 1/3 of its viewers are cheating by using shared accounts. If they strictly enforce, they can predict they might lose eyeballs and ad revenue despite making more subscription revenue. So they don't do anything for now....

If the support effort for additional platforms was justifiable based on profit, it would happen.


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## freezr (May 27, 2022)

jbodenmann said:


> That question seems to come with some sort of negativity attached to it. I am not sure I understand why. I'm merely asking to hear your opinion because I like to hear opinions of different people with different backgrounds. That doesn't mean that I don't have one myself, or that I either agree or disagree with yours or your initial statement I followed-up on
> 
> As such: Thank you for sharing your opinion.



My bad... I beg pardon...


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## freezr (May 27, 2022)

Bluey said:


> I don't think it is about control. Just simple business calculus = money.
> 
> Netflix knows 1/3 of its viewers are cheating by using shared accounts. If they strictly enforce, they can predict they might lose eyeballs and ad revenue despite making more subsscription revenue. So they don't do anything for now....
> 
> If the support effort for additional platforms was justifiable based on profit, it would happen.



I am not sure how much you can cheat with Netflix, eventually you can't go over the amount of devices your subscription provides. The Widevine plugin I think is provided by Google, Chromium based Web Browser can simply unwrap or reuse the same version provided by Chrome. Widewine on some arm SOC is provided jumping through some hoops, by downloading a full ChromeOS and then extracting Widevine module, the browser (Vivaldi or Chromium) must be use an user-agent and disguise itself as ChromeOS... 

Since the numbers beyond Linux is most likely irrelevant the plugin is not provided for BSD but on Arm might be a game-changer, and nobody want give to the end-users such freedom...


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## grahamperrin@ (May 28, 2022)

Alain De Vos said:


> … Firefox & DRM (non-linux) ?



<https://forums.freebsd.org/posts/551827> NB the 2018 post by Jan Beich.


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