Hacker News Reader

Comment by ShamelessC | Hacker News Reader

This is off topic but do you know why Edge is the only browser to support DRM for streaming? Or is that incorrect?

I see lots of people who have to use edge on order to get 4k content from Netflix; presumably because of the DRM issues.

View on HN

Other browsers support DRM too, but with different tradeoffs.

Chrome uses Widevine, but one of Chrome's philosophies is that you should be able to wipe a Chrome install, reinstall Chrome, and have no trace that before/after are the same person. That means no leveraging machine-specific hardware details that would persist across installs. "Software-only DRM", essentially.

Edge on Windows (and Safari on OSX) are able to leverage more hardware-specific functionality --- which from a DRM perspective are considered "more secure", but the tradeoff is a reduction of end-user anonymity (i.e. if private keys baked into a hardware TPM are involved).

Last I checked, Chrome/Firefox were capped at 720p content, Safari/Edge at 1080p, though it looks like Edge is now able to stream 4k.

Its absurd that paying customers get a worse experience than just using the piratebay.

Last time I used piratebay, I saw a lot of porn and malware/scam ads. I had to find and install a torrent client. Then I had to make sure I was downloading a movie that had enough seeders. And then I couldn't watch the movie until (and if) the download finished.

When I use netflix, I have a much better experience.

You obviously haven't tried popcorntime.

One of the best solutions out there.

Which is illegal.

And torrents (of copyrighted content) aren't? You're completely missing the point of this thread.

That's kind of the point, the illegal solution is better than the legal one.

Used it once, cost me €840.

With torrents you can get a film in minutes. With popcorn you are exposed the entire time you watch the film.

In Germany they monitor peer connections and send a payment demanding an out of court settlement. After two years they escalate to a court appearance in a remote town. If you don't show, you lose and they turn it over to debt collection.

But I have to say Birdman was a great film.

This is exactly why I use a VPN. Last thing anyone needs is to be inconvenienced by BS laws bought buy special interests.

I know this is all anecdotal, but last time I used a torrent site, I found the movie immediately and it pulled the whole thing down in under 3 minutes. Could be that it was a newer movie and pretty popular. I do see a lot of older stuff that's not being seeded much anymore.

> When I use netflix, I have a much better experience.

If you're on Linux, you won't be able to stream at 1080p, let alone 4k. Netflix even went out of their way to disable workarounds that users developed.

1) I'm not on Linux. 2) I'd rather have the convenience of streaming at all than the best possible resolution.

I don't know what the resolution of my TV is, but I highly doubt it's over 1080p, if that.

Streaming above 720p also doesn't work via Firefox on any operating system.

Source?

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23931

> Mozilla Firefox up to 720p

According to the test pattern videos I'm getting 1080p in Firefox on Windows

They may not have the same DRM restrictions as actual content? It's not that Firefox is not technically capable of rendering the videos, it's that it doesn't give the DRM the control that Netflix and rightholders want to require in exchange.

Try "actual" content videos. You can press ctrl+alt+shift+D to open a debug overlay that shows the playback resolution.

The actual DRM limitations also vary by content (and region) - with some titles I get 720p on Linux while some other titles are limited to SD, while I get 1080p on Windows Edge on those same titles.

You can have a similar experience with a private tracker and a seedbox. The content is curated (no malware), there's a larger selection, the quality is sometimes higher, and peers generally have better connections.

After you pick your torrent, it takes the seedbox a few seconds to download the content. Then you can stream your download using emby, vlc over http, or whatever you prefer.

"Last time I used piratebay, I saw a lot of porn"

Why did you use piratebay unless that was your goal?

Some torrent clients support sequential downloading, which will be equivalent to streaming with most video formats. And obviously there's uBlock for the ads.

DRM on streaming and BluRays made it so that any usage outside basic consumption on prescribed devices is better served by illegal means.

I don't live in Europe but I canceled my Netflix the minute I learned that Reed Hastings is taking advantage of the coronavirus situation to increase Netflix's bottom line by limiting streaming quality to everyone in Europe after one phone call with a French politician.

There are plenty of torrent streaming and download clients that work just as well and are just as convenient as Netflix, without needing to rely on a central authority.

You can use webtorrent - https://webtorrent.io/

I don't know this technology, but I'd really recommend using a VPN that provides a SOCKS proxy for your Bittorrent connections. Otherwise you're just announcing your IP address related to your torrent activities to the whole world.

Netflix doesn’t have most stuff.

Wait til you see how amazing the experience can be with Usenets...

How do I get into using Usenet?

You need: 1. Usenet provider (this allows you to download the links) and Usenet indexer (this allows you to search for content you want because files like movies usually have obfuscated filenames). Example of the former is Frugal Usenet, example of the latter is Drunken Slug (free-ish) or DogNZB (paid). One of the many things you need to watch out for with providers is retention, the length of time they keep the files so you can download them. In general, the older content you find on the indexer, the less likely it's still going to be available. The downloading itself can be done in an automated way (for example with Sonarr and the like) or kind-of manual with tools like SABnzbd.

Thanks a lot!

Not absurd so much as a major reason why the piratebay exists.

So any user on Edge can be hardware fingerprinted easily? I can see why other browsers stay far away.

That's a good question. Is there anything to stop a disreputable advertiser/tracker hijacking the EME DRM scheme for tracking?

The evercookie project doesn't appear to leverage EME, for what that's worth. https://samy.pl/evercookie/

> one of Chrome's philosophies is that you should be able to wipe a Chrome install, reinstall Chrome, and have no trace that before/after are the same person.

Why would that be their philosophy? It sounds like some kind of privacy-motivated idea which seems contrary to Google’s typical philosophy. Or is it more about portability?

I am not sure about Edge specifically, but as someone who tries to use mostly open source software: Digital Rights Management (DRM) requirements often directly conflict with licensing related to open source software.

Not the only browser to support DRM. But the only browser to support PlayReady on Windows, which brings added security compared to what Widevine offers on Windows.

Another popular choice for high quality is Safari on macOS because it implements Apple's FairPlay.

Wait, Netflix et al use FairPlay in Safari on macOS?

I'm surprised, because Fairplay is publicly crackable.

So is WideVine.

It is?! The only public way to decrypt that which I'm aware of stopped working 15 years ago.

If you still see pirated copies of shows marked with WEB-DL (rather than Webrip), there's a way of decrypting the content directly. I really doubt the methods that are used are public, though.

*Added security for the remote server but massively reduced security for the end users computer.

Any source?

It allows websites to run arbitrary code blobs which interact with a hardware backdoor in your CPU with a higher permission level than the OS. With the multiple exploits that have been found in intel cpus and the Management Engine itself there is no way you should be letting any website do that.

Other browsers support Widevine which is by far the more popular DRM scheme.

Simply because Netflix uses Playready DRM for 4k streaming, which is even harder to bypass and requires WinRT API (?) to even able to use the recent version.

Currently only Microsoft itself even try to implement it on their own Chromium-based browser.

There are different kinds of DRM. Streaming websites allow different quality for different kinds of DRM. E.g. they allow best quality only for best protected DRM (which should use encryption all the way from Netflix webserver to your display). There's software DRM (decrypting stream inside proprietary blob) which is considered weaker, so you'll receive acceptable quality in Chrome. I don't know why Chrome did not implement the most secure DRM. Hopefully Microsoft will contribute their patches back.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com