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I still think that EME were a mistake for web standards to implement. I disable them by default and yet see widevine requests as part of analytics, the occasion

I still think that EME were a mistake for web standards to implement. I disable them by default and yet see widevine requests as part of analytics, the occasional bot captcha, and other inappropriate locations all the time. I really just wish the whole thing would bog off - its anti consumer and approving the standard was I think a really foolish mistake. At least Firefox has an "off" button. Would that it was off by default.

gruez 2mo ago
>its anti consumer and approving the standard was I think a really foolish mistake. The alternative is that Netflix et. al can't be played on firefox and you need to install chrome just to watch it, which weakens firefox's market share even more.
- Retr0id 2mo ago
  And until today, it would've meant having to boot macOS or Windows to watch Netflix on an aarch64 device, regardless of browser choice. (In practice it has been possible for longer, due to workarounds that were largely only possible due to the standardised EME interface)
- jchw 2mo ago
  Mozilla making choices specifically to try to "keep up" with Chrome has objectively failed: Firefox's marketshare has plunged so far that it's getting harder to keep using it on the web, as developers simply stop testing or caring much if it works with their site. I think this is because simply chasing Chrome didn't have the desired effect anyway. By doing so, Mozilla hurt Firefox by gradually reducing what differentiated it from Chrome in the first place, relegating it to be kind of just a worse Chrome that looks even weirder. A similar statement would be something like, "Firefox may as well pledge to support Web Environment Integrity; otherwise, people will just use Chrome." In a totally different vertical, Valve has made interesting choices. To my knowledge, they do not provide a way to do attestation on Steam hardware devices, so games that want to support Steam hardware simply have to get rid of their intrusive DRM and anti-cheat, or at least significantly loosen it. Depending on how you look at it, this has either been a massive success or a massive failure. After all, a lot of big games don't run; Fortnite, Valorant, etc. But on the other hand, it remains a very powerful incentive for publishers and developers to reconsider their choices, as these devices still do have a non-trivial marketshare. (And for smaller games this obviously is hard to ignore, probably often moreso than intrusive DRM.) Mozilla may have been ultimately correct that the choices they made helped them stay relevant; it's hard to know for sure how much their marketshare would be different today if they made bolder choices, but in the long run I think it has doomed them, as it is now unclear what even really differentiates Firefox. The last remaining thing seems to just be that you can run the full version of uBlock Origin, which is pretty valuable and all, but I'm not sure it makes up for the deficiencies. (I also like Container Tabs, but I think that feature is pretty niche, possibly somewhat by virtue of the fact that Firefox is now pretty niche.) I'm currently using Librewolf. My long term hope was that Ladybird would become the browser that does what Firefox should have, but when I asked Andreas Kling whether or not Ladybird would try to support EME/Widevine in an HN thread, there was no reply, which is pretty close to "probably".
  - gruez 2mo ago
    >I think this is because simply chasing Chrome didn't have the desired effect anyway. By doing so, Mozilla hurt Firefox by gradually reducing what differentiated it from Chrome in the first place, relegating it to be kind of just a worse Chrome that looks even weirder. That logic might work for firefox's product direction as a whole, but narrowly looking at the EME issue, what should have they done? If they didn't implement EME, then people will have to install chrome to watch netfilx. The users who are there as a matter of principle (eg. HN readers) might still use firefox as their daily driver, but they'd almost certainly lose some normies who were using firefox on inertia. Meanwhile because they refused to negotiate, they won't be able to influence the direction of the standard, which means no sandboxing of DRM modules and other privacy features. Both firefox and their users lose out in this scenario.
    - jchw 2mo ago
      Simple: allow those users to be lost to preserve the product. The entire Internet is not Netflix. Most Netflix users today don't even use their laptops or desktops for Netflix: they use it on their TVs, phones, video game consoles. Firefox is a bad way to use Netflix anyways. It doesn't support high resolutions because it has limited Widevine support anyways. It doesn't support Widevine l1 and never has. So... It is a worse way to watch Netflix. I'm sorry but this "we can't possibly take a risk like this" mentality is cancerous. It is comfortable to "play it safe" and all, but nobody takes any risks for anything anymore. It's not calculated when the calculation is "avoid risk at all costs".
      - netdevphoenix 2mo ago
        > Simple: allow those users to be lost to preserve the product. Lose the users lose the funding. Firefox can't live out of HN as its sole userbase. Have you checked how much it costs to build and maintain a modern browser? Plenty of users who have no money for TV or consoles, watch it on their laptop on low quality. I am one of those who watches Netflix on Linux Firefox :) This isn't just any risk. It's an existential one for Firefox. You are asking them to make something that would be unpopular to the majority of its userbase at a point when they are borderline extinct. You are asking Mozilla to jeopardise Firefox for the same of a feature that YOU dislike enough to want to burn Firefox to the ground to get rid of it.
- raverbashing 2mo ago
  Yeah, obviously "Oh but firefox share is diminishing" yes, but it still exists. Or could be another browser
- jareklupinski 2mo ago
  > The alternative is that Netflix et. al can't be played on firefox why pay for something you cant use
  - jeroenhd 2mo ago
    You can use it. Just use any other browser. Chrome is free, Brave is free, Vivaldi is free.
- ExoticPearTree 2mo ago
  > The alternative is that Netflix et. al can't be played on firefox and you need to install chrome just to watch it, which weakens firefox's market share even more. I really don't know how much good that does to Netflix. If you take a popular show from Netflix and google "show name free online" you will find ton of sites streaming it the second day it was streamed on Netflix. HD quality nonetheless.
- redeeman 2mo ago
  what a terrible loss.
- rf15 2mo ago
  > The alternative is that Netflix et. al can't be played But that's Netflix's decision to enforce, not a foregone technical requirement. Not to mention that widevine has been cracked as far as I understand it and doesn't stop people from pirating it.
- qingcharles 2mo ago
  All the DRM does is mean that pirates have to record the screen at worst and suffer a slight ding from the double-compression. Except all the DRMs are broken judging by all the items labeled "WEB-DL" online, which appears to be a download of the original unencrypted stream. So, really, the DRM does nothing except piss off legitimate consumers.
- afavour 2mo ago
  I’d argue it’s worse than that, even: Netflix and the rest would make you download a native app.

gruez 2mo ago

>its anti consumer and approving the standard was I think a really foolish mistake. The alternative is that Netflix et. al can't be played on firefox and you need to install chrome just to watch it, which weakens firefox's market share even more.

Retr0id 2mo ago
And until today, it would've meant having to boot macOS or Windows to watch Netflix on an aarch64 device, regardless of browser choice. (In practice it has been possible for longer, due to workarounds that were largely only possible due to the standardised EME interface)
jchw 2mo ago
Mozilla making choices specifically to try to "keep up" with Chrome has objectively failed: Firefox's marketshare has plunged so far that it's getting harder to keep using it on the web, as developers simply stop testing or caring much if it works with their site. I think this is because simply chasing Chrome didn't have the desired effect anyway. By doing so, Mozilla hurt Firefox by gradually reducing what differentiated it from Chrome in the first place, relegating it to be kind of just a worse Chrome that looks even weirder. A similar statement would be something like, "Firefox may as well pledge to support Web Environment Integrity; otherwise, people will just use Chrome." In a totally different vertical, Valve has made interesting choices. To my knowledge, they do not provide a way to do attestation on Steam hardware devices, so games that want to support Steam hardware simply have to get rid of their intrusive DRM and anti-cheat, or at least significantly loosen it. Depending on how you look at it, this has either been a massive success or a massive failure. After all, a lot of big games don't run; Fortnite, Valorant, etc. But on the other hand, it remains a very powerful incentive for publishers and developers to reconsider their choices, as these devices still do have a non-trivial marketshare. (And for smaller games this obviously is hard to ignore, probably often moreso than intrusive DRM.) Mozilla may have been ultimately correct that the choices they made helped them stay relevant; it's hard to know for sure how much their marketshare would be different today if they made bolder choices, but in the long run I think it has doomed them, as it is now unclear what even really differentiates Firefox. The last remaining thing seems to just be that you can run the full version of uBlock Origin, which is pretty valuable and all, but I'm not sure it makes up for the deficiencies. (I also like Container Tabs, but I think that feature is pretty niche, possibly somewhat by virtue of the fact that Firefox is now pretty niche.) I'm currently using Librewolf. My long term hope was that Ladybird would become the browser that does what Firefox should have, but when I asked Andreas Kling whether or not Ladybird would try to support EME/Widevine in an HN thread, there was no reply, which is pretty close to "probably".
- gruez 2mo ago
  >I think this is because simply chasing Chrome didn't have the desired effect anyway. By doing so, Mozilla hurt Firefox by gradually reducing what differentiated it from Chrome in the first place, relegating it to be kind of just a worse Chrome that looks even weirder. That logic might work for firefox's product direction as a whole, but narrowly looking at the EME issue, what should have they done? If they didn't implement EME, then people will have to install chrome to watch netfilx. The users who are there as a matter of principle (eg. HN readers) might still use firefox as their daily driver, but they'd almost certainly lose some normies who were using firefox on inertia. Meanwhile because they refused to negotiate, they won't be able to influence the direction of the standard, which means no sandboxing of DRM modules and other privacy features. Both firefox and their users lose out in this scenario.
  - jchw 2mo ago
    Simple: allow those users to be lost to preserve the product. The entire Internet is not Netflix. Most Netflix users today don't even use their laptops or desktops for Netflix: they use it on their TVs, phones, video game consoles. Firefox is a bad way to use Netflix anyways. It doesn't support high resolutions because it has limited Widevine support anyways. It doesn't support Widevine l1 and never has. So... It is a worse way to watch Netflix. I'm sorry but this "we can't possibly take a risk like this" mentality is cancerous. It is comfortable to "play it safe" and all, but nobody takes any risks for anything anymore. It's not calculated when the calculation is "avoid risk at all costs".
    - netdevphoenix 2mo ago
      > Simple: allow those users to be lost to preserve the product. Lose the users lose the funding. Firefox can't live out of HN as its sole userbase. Have you checked how much it costs to build and maintain a modern browser? Plenty of users who have no money for TV or consoles, watch it on their laptop on low quality. I am one of those who watches Netflix on Linux Firefox :) This isn't just any risk. It's an existential one for Firefox. You are asking them to make something that would be unpopular to the majority of its userbase at a point when they are borderline extinct. You are asking Mozilla to jeopardise Firefox for the same of a feature that YOU dislike enough to want to burn Firefox to the ground to get rid of it.
raverbashing 2mo ago
Yeah, obviously "Oh but firefox share is diminishing" yes, but it still exists. Or could be another browser
jareklupinski 2mo ago
> The alternative is that Netflix et. al can't be played on firefox why pay for something you cant use
- jeroenhd 2mo ago
  You can use it. Just use any other browser. Chrome is free, Brave is free, Vivaldi is free.
ExoticPearTree 2mo ago
> The alternative is that Netflix et. al can't be played on firefox and you need to install chrome just to watch it, which weakens firefox's market share even more. I really don't know how much good that does to Netflix. If you take a popular show from Netflix and google "show name free online" you will find ton of sites streaming it the second day it was streamed on Netflix. HD quality nonetheless.
redeeman 2mo ago
what a terrible loss.
rf15 2mo ago
> The alternative is that Netflix et. al can't be played But that's Netflix's decision to enforce, not a foregone technical requirement. Not to mention that widevine has been cracked as far as I understand it and doesn't stop people from pirating it.
qingcharles 2mo ago
All the DRM does is mean that pirates have to record the screen at worst and suffer a slight ding from the double-compression. Except all the DRMs are broken judging by all the items labeled "WEB-DL" online, which appears to be a download of the original unencrypted stream. So, really, the DRM does nothing except piss off legitimate consumers.
afavour 2mo ago
I’d argue it’s worse than that, even: Netflix and the rest would make you download a native app.