Fed up of having to quit Firefox and use Google Chrome each time you fancy binging on a Netflix boxset?
I’ve got some good news.
Mozilla plan to support plugin-free streaming for Netflix (and Amazon Prime Video) in Firefox on Linux, starting with the Firefox 49 release, due September 2016.
As Google Chrome has, Firefox is removing support for NPAPI plugins in the near future. These are plugins that many video streaming sites rely on for restricted playback.
Firefox will support Widevine CDM on Linux, meaning you can finally watch Netflix without hurdles
HTML5 DRM offers an alternative, and both Netflix and Amazon Prime video streaming services support it on macOS and Windows.
“Widevine support is an alternative solution for streaming services that currently rely on Silverlight for playback of DRM-protected video content,” the company explained earlier this year.
“It will allow websites to show DRM-protected video content in Firefox without the use of NPAPI plugins. This is an important step on Mozilla’s roadmap to remove NPAPI plugin support.”
The Google Widevine CDM (Content Decryption Manager) is already available in Firefox on Windows and Mac OS X.
The “news” here is that the browser finally plans to support it on Linux too.
How it Will Work
The plan is to handle Google Widevine CDM on Linux the same way it’s handled on on other platforms. That is: the module gets downloaded and installed when you launch Firefox, but it only get enabled (turned on) the first time you open a site that requires it.
Firefox is getting ready to support CDM on Linux, but will streaming services?
Netflix and co are unlikely to flip the switch for Linux Firefox users right away. Some short-term user-agent switching may be necessary, as it was on Chrome to begin with.
In time though, it should become an easy, automatic effort that “just works”.
DRM isn’t everyone’s favourite fruit-shoot. Mozilla will, as always, offer an Encrypted Media Extension free version of their browser to allow purists to browse free of any DRM encrypted doohickeys.
Are you a Firefox user who is looking forward to this? Could this tempt you away from Chrome? Share your thoughts in the comments below.