
Chrome Widevine DRM can no longer be disabled - ivank
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=686430
======
0x0
This + moving SSL certificate details dialog hidden away into devtools + no
way to disable NaCl + chrome 56 auto-re-enabling flash and widevine on every
launch (which shows a click-to-enable-flash everywhere chrome55 would just use
a html5 video player) + the upcoming background tab throttling means I'll be
seriously reconsidering firefox or safari before the next Chrome release :-/

~~~
malikNF
I have actually started using firefox again recently, chrome has lost me due
to how hard they (and Google as a company) are trying to push things on to
people.

Anyways, I am in love with the nightly build of ff and everyone should
honestly give it atleast a week of their time to try it.

The developer edition and the nightly build have some really interesting
features for development out of the box and honestly helps make work easier.
You do run in to the occasional error or two but for pre-release versions they
are seriously stable.

p.s
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12579163](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12579163)
(Choose Firefox Now, or Later You Won't Get a Choice (2014))

~~~
zbraniecki
Hi all.

Just wanted to tell you that a lot of people working on Firefox are here and
we really appreciate your word of mouth support and feedback.

This year is going to be huge for us as we're wrapping up the part about
reducing technical debt and start gearing toward using our new superpowers to
innovate.

We need your help to stay relevant (market share), improve quality (report
bugs, write test cases), and improve (lots of code in Firefox is easy to hack
on as we move a lot of UI to HTML/JS - like devtools).

~~~
Chirael
This is great to read/hear. I'll put my vote in for two things. 1)
Performance, performance, performance; this is what originally caused me to
use Chrome a lot more, the perception of quick-to-open tabs and snappy
responsiveness. 2) Privacy; this is something Google almost by definition
can't compete on, because their business model depends on providing something
free in exchange for user data (the opposite of privacy). A third important
consideration of course is "not crashing" or at least if there is a crash,
containing it to the offending tab - this is why I'm very happy to read about
the progress of multi-process Firefox! Keep up the great work guys.

~~~
zbraniecki
Hey, thank you for your input.

We are aware of the importance of those three things. They're all not-trivial
problems to solve, but we're working on all three:

1) Performance is an insanely complex problem. We can't easily measure the
"real" performance, in a scientific way. We can measure performance of so
called "microbenchmarks" which can tell you that, for example, our JavaScript
engine can perform X million regular expression computations per second. The X
may be higher or lower than what Chakra or V8 can, but how it translates to
real world experience is insanely complicated. What we know by now is that JS
engine performance is not the problem. At this point all modern engines are
fast. What we need to advance are things like performance of DOM, CSS, layout,
painting and prioritization (ability to ensure that UI performance cannot be
blocked by website's JS computations). We're working hard on several projects
this year, under the umbrella of codename "quantum" that is aiming at making
Firefox blazingly fast. We're taking lessons and code from Servo and applying
it in Firefox. The end result, if we succeed, is that we'll have ability to
perform DOM, layout, CSS and painting orders of magnitude faster (even if it's
2x it's still huge!). The other piece of performance, is what's called
perceived performance. That one is even more tricky because it's all about
what your brain tells you. In cognitive psychology and HCI there are tons of
studies that prove that depending on how we use tricks like animation, colors,
shapes and gimmicks like focus, we can trick your eye to think that things are
faster or slower. Chrome is really good at that and kudos to them! I love
watching their UI painting order in 120fps slow-mo just to see all the things
they employed. Together with Quantum we're going to look into ways to improve
the perceived performance of Firefox. I hope we'll get it right :)

2) On the privacy front we're working with Tor browser and we're also working
on several projects aiming at disrupting the current way of browsing the
Internet. Read about Firefox+Tor browser and Activity Streams if you're
interested.

3) On the QA front, we've made major progress over the last year. That's a
huge part of the technical debt that we had to remodel in 2016. We now have
much better fuzzers, tests and APIs that makes it easier to write code that
will not break. On top of that, multi-process helps us make sure that painting
crash doesn't crash your browser, that plugins can't crash your browser and
finally that content can't crash your browser. We also designed a whole new
language that is significantly better suited to write security critical code
than C++ is. It's called Rust and we just started moving pieces of our engine
to it. If we can succeed with this, we should end up with a codebase of the
unprecedented stability for a project this size and facing third-party code.
If you're interested, read about Mozilla Oxidation project.

It is a major bet. We're betting on JS, we're betting on Rust. We're betting
on Gecko and our ability to "change the engine mid-flight". I'm excited about
the opportunity, but it's going to be a huge effort to pull it off.

If any of this is interesting for you, help us! We're a small team (compared
to all other browser engines), but we have a culture that fosters community
participation and I believe that we can compete and shape the Web together:
[https://whatcanidoformozilla.org/](https://whatcanidoformozilla.org/)

~~~
michaelmrose
On desktop firefox for linux I notice that chrome makes vastly better use of
gpu acceleration given nvidia card + official nvidia drivers are there plans
for improvements on this front. This is literally the only reason to run
anything but firefox on any device I have and would love to see improvements
on that front. Without tweaking in about config my wifes computer which is
anything but blazing fast with a dual core 3 ghz full screen 1080p video was
like a slide show. Even after its noticably laggy to the point where I've had
to install chrome.

I'm not sure if it makes any difference whether its flash or html5 video.

~~~
zbraniecki
did you report bug on bugzilla.mozilla.org ? If not, please do and include all
the details you can about your platform.

Graphic driver bugs are nasty :)

Hope we'll be able to address it and remove the one and only reason you can't
use Firefox!

~~~
michaelmrose
I don't think per se its a bug. It just seems to be relying on the cpu vs gpu
and the cpu isn't incredibly fast. Its dual core phenom II 3 Ghz

------
shmerl
I'm glad Mozilla provides EME-free version of Firefox:
[https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/51.0/](https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/51.0/)

~~~
hansjorg
Normal Firefox builds also provide a checkbox under the Content settings to
disable it. As far as I recall, I've never touched the setting, but it's
disabled here.

~~~
shmerl
I suppose EME-free builds prevent even the possibility of enabling it.

~~~
cpeterso
You can technically re-enable EME in the "EME-free" Firefox builds by setting
the "media.eme.enabled" pref in about:config. The term "EME-free" is a bit of
misnomer. The "EME-free" builds have two differences from regular Firefox
builds: the Widevine CDM downloader is disabled and the "Play DRM content"
setting checkbox is hidden.

~~~
shmerl
I see, thanks. I hoped they actually disabled EME functionality at the build
time. That would have made more sense.

~~~
kuschku
Well, Firefox does not contain EME functionality itself – if it’s needed, and
activated, it just downloads the binary and runs it.

The EME-free builds just have that download code disabled, and the setting for
it hidden.

~~~
shmerl
It supports usage of EME related API which sits around the blob. Having no
such support altogether (cut out at build time), would make the blob
irrelevant to begin with.

------
ferbivore
Looks like the semi-official Google position is that Widevine should have been
impossible to disable all along [1]. Go figure.

[1]:
[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=615738...](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=615738#c31)

~~~
mixedCase
Honestly? It makes sense and I see nothing wrong with it.

Chrome is Google's opinionated version of Chromium, with the average user in
mind.

Everyone else should be using Chromium. There's nothing wrong or lacking in it
now that the PDF module has been open sourced. If one wants Flash or Widevine,
those can be installed separately.

~~~
akjainaj
Is there a way to use a stable version of Chromium that automatically updates?

~~~
Jackneill
sudo pacman -S chromium. All decent distros ought to have it.

~~~
akjainaj
Thank you but I use Windows.

~~~
Lammy
It's available in Chocolatey
[https://chocolatey.org/packages/chromium](https://chocolatey.org/packages/chromium)

------
BrendanEich
That's interesting, because Brave has Widevine off by default and includes
this notice in the preference UX for enabling it:

\---

Google Widevine Support

Google Widevine is a piece of Digital Rights Management (DRM) code that we at
Brave Software do not own and cannot inspect. The Google Widevine code is
loaded from Google servers, not from our servers. It is loaded only when you
enable this option. We discourage the use of DRM, but we respect user choice
and acknowledge that some Brave users would like to use services that require
it. [info link to
[https://www.eff.org/issues/drm](https://www.eff.org/issues/drm)]

By installing this extension, you are agreeing to the Google Widevine Terms of
Use. You agree that Brave is not responsible for any damages or losses in
connection with your use of Google Widevine. [info link to
[https://www.google.com/policies/terms/](https://www.google.com/policies/terms/)]

Enable Google Widevine support [button label]

\---

You can view this as a DRM mandate canary if you like. It's still in Brave
0.13.0. That's all I have to say for now.

~~~
BrendanEich
We don't even load the DRM module (CDM) until that pref is enabled, note well.

------
robxu9
TIL that Widevine DRM is the reason my HDMI monitor flashes whenever I start
or stop viewing something on Netflix or Amazon Video.

Welp.

~~~
jjcm
While I understand the content producers / owners stance on DRM, I've never
once found a widevine or any other DRM'd show or movie that hasn't been
available via piracy. All it seems to do is things like this - degrade the
legal users' experience. Even though I have amazon prime and netflix accounts,
I still download all of my shows. It's just a better experience.

One question I have is this: are there any examples of cases where DRM on
widely distributed media has actually worked?

~~~
mattnewton
Every drm implementation has successfully sold engineering hours to big media.
But no, if anything, annecdotally it drives me to piracy after being unable to
use my purchase on my projector.

------
wslh
We are all that boiling frog [1]. Google, and others, introduced a new
business tactic that is even been followed by Microsoft (in reverse mode).
They push all kind of open source and free stuff and slowly, very slowly, they
move to old monopolies tactics. Most locked people will not change to another
browser just because they added a new "tiny" portion of code which is not
political correct.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog)

~~~
superkuh
Yep. And if you don't like it they (Google/Mozilla) tell you to use the
developer's version. As if using an alpha was an acceptable option.

~~~
Vinnl
Why include Mozilla in those parentheses?

~~~
mort96
Firefox' non-developer version is also getting more locked down. I had to
change to it from the regular version when I couldn't use the extension I have
written for myself anymore, because Mozilla removed the option to install
unsigned extensions.

------
swiley
Google is turning the web into things it never should have become. It's very
sad.

~~~
Silhouette
Sadly, I think it's popular demand that is changing the nature of the Web.
Google is just taking advantage of the situation in ways that benefit
themselves, as is almost everyone else in the modern Web ecosystem.

~~~
kijin
There is no such thing as popular demand, only what major web companies think
will benefit their bottom line. They just supply what they want to supply and
invent demand to justify it _post facto_.

Nobody outside of the MAFIAA demanded a flickering, crashy, proprietary DRM
module for the web. But since that's what Google can supply at this time, they
would like all of us to pretend that there's some sort of popular demand for
it.

All these players add so many layers of deliberately misleading interpretation
and assumptions on top of what ordinary users might actually want, it's
impossible to figure out which "demands" are authentic and which ones are mere
illusions anymore.

~~~
Silhouette
The popular demand isn't for DRM, it's for being able to watch movies and TV
shows through online streaming instead of going out to the cinema or waiting
for something to be on TV.

The people making those movies and TV shows are only willing to let services
put them online if those services offer certain safeguards to prevent flagrant
abuse.

Hence, we get DRM in online streaming systems. People who object for some
reason can either disable it or use a different browser, but the price is that
they don't get to stream the content. Meanwhile, most people don't know or
care what DRM is or how it works, as long as they can binge-watch their
favourite drama or enjoy a new movie with their family on a Saturday night.

~~~
Dylan16807
>certain safeguards to prevent flagrant abuse

Except it doesn't do that _at all_.

~~~
Silhouette
Of course it does. DRM obviously doesn't prevent _every_ abuse, but the idea
that a modern DRM system doesn't prevent any casual copying at all is as
absurd as the idea that every copy is a lost sale when calculating damages.

~~~
fpig
Casual copying has become pretty much irrelevant, though. This isn't the 90s
any more; now one person releases a torrent and thousands of people end up
downloading it. When was the last time you copied some media or a piece of
software from someone, even for things with no copy protection that are legal
to copy? I don't even bother to copy stuff between my own computers, instead I
just download it again...

To prevent piracy you'd need to stop the people who are experts at breaking
copy protection (which has been a spectacular failure so far) because everyone
else is just downloading their stuff and completely avoiding copy protection.

~~~
Silhouette
_Casual copying has become pretty much irrelevant, though._

This misconception seems to fuel a lot of the anti-DRM arguments, but I'm
afraid it's a misconception all the same.

For one thing, modern online and hardware-based copy protection systems can
actually be quite effective. Contrary to popular wisdom among geeks, they
don't all get cracked automatically within five minutes. Illegal rips of films
or TV shows mostly originate from other sources, not the online streaming
services.

As for software, take a look at what is actually being copied in terms of,
say, the latest games. If the copy protection even takes a few days to crack,
for a new AAA title that is going to be the big thing for a month or two, that
could be a _huge_ win for the publisher. Remember, we're talking about a
target market who are irrational enough to pre-order big name titles, even
though there is little if anything in it for them to commit their money before
the game is even finished or reviewed. As far as these people are concerned,
they must have their new shiny on day one or the world will end, and if they
can't get it with a quick crack, a lot of them are going to pay for it.

Another factor that is often overlooked is that most creative content _isn 't_
Hollywood blockbusters or AAA games. A lot of creative content is aimed at
much smaller, niche markets. There's far less incentive for crackers to spend
a lot of time breaking any protections on that content, but the damage done
through infringement can be worse because a lot of this stuff is created by
individuals or small teams and usually it isn't super-profitable in the first
place.

A second factor that often gets overlooked is that a lot of people simply
don't realise when copying and sharing content is not permitted or legal. Most
people aren't computer experts or IP lawyers. If you don't provide some sort
of technical barrier, even if it's just a token effort that makes it clear
that they're doing something they shouldn't be, plenty of people will copy and
share and not even realise they're doing anything wrong. I've even seen
messages sent to some of my businesses from people who literally told us
(after being kicked for blatantly violating our terms) that if we didn't want
that to happen we shouldn't offer content in the standard, DRM-free formats.

 _To prevent piracy..._

Most of the time, trying to prevent 100% of piracy is a futile gesture. But
like any other form of security in technology, it's a sliding scale, and some
is still better than none.

~~~
Dylan16807
Copy protection on software like games can be useful. On Netflix? Not at all.
It's easy to bypass, and even if it worked perfectly, you just need a cheap
HDMI splitter and a capture card. The reason you don't see a lot of rips off
Netflix is because Netflix doesn't get a lot of things first, not because the
DRM is effective.

As far as technical barriers, recording a stream is tricky enough in the first
place. You can't right click save on Netflix, even in the absence of DRM.

------
bostand
I don't mind paying for content. In fact, I pay a lot for my content
consumption as direct purchases and streaming services.

But I don't like having a huge pile of unverified third party code in a
browser i never use for content consumption.

~~~
asadotzler
The CDM is a lot less of a huge pile of unverified third party code in the
browser than was Flash and Silverlight before.

------
nmjohn
What a frustrating change. However it still is possible to disable (though you
probably will need to do this every time chrome updates)

Simply deleting the folder that contains "widevinecdmadapter.plugin" will
effectively disable the plugin.

So, for example, on OSX using homebrew to install chrome, it'd be:

    
    
        rm -rf /opt/homebrew-cask/Caskroom/google-chrome-canary/latest/Google\ Chrome\ Canary.app/Contents/Versions/58.0.2996.0/Google\ Chrome\ Framework.framework/Libraries/WidevineCdm

~~~
Sunset
You can deny write permissions to the folder.

~~~
mschuster91
I wouldn't try that as it will likely break the auto-updater when it tries to
update the Widevine files.

~~~
Sunset
Is there something like an "overlay" FUSE fs which pretend to write what you
give it but then just discards what you give it and returns the actual file
when you attempt to read?

To defeat checks right after writes it could return what you wrote once( or a
configurable number of times) but after that just give you the original file
when you read it.

------
adzm
Is there a technical reason that this can't simply be disabled with a feature
flag like many of Chrome's other features? It would avoid the whole issue.

Also reading this bug report makes me realize this is probably what was going
on when I had similar strange issues happen with chrome and tabs and running
stuff through HDMI splitters for KVM etc.

~~~
zeta0134
There isn't a technical reason it shouldn't be able to be implemented. Mostly
it's a matter of getting the UI preference hooked up; it looks like they've
already done something similar with the Flash plugin for users which wish to
disable Flash, and this is a similar case.

The reality of the Flash situation is quite messy, with a ton of websites
relying on nonstandard behavior and checks to see if Flash is even installed,
and Google seems to have missed the use case for disabling the plugin
entirely, rather than just blocking it. This seems like a similar oversight.

I'm torn here, as I see what Google is trying to accomplish with their
settings spread. Mostly, the browser has chosen quite sensible defaults for
the bulk of its users that needs the web to JustWork(tm) and they're hesitant
to add extra checkboxes to avoid confusing folks. But with the politically
charged nature of DRM, as well as the technical issues presented here (HDMI /
HDCP is notoriously finnicky and the user should have more control over when
it's enabled) I think a checkbox to disable the plugin entirely, similar to
Flash, is the best solution.

~~~
paralelogram
Non-standard ways of embedding Flash are common because of Eolas patents:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eolas#Effects_on_other_browser...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eolas#Effects_on_other_browsers)

[https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/ms537508.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/ms537508.aspx)

------
bartvk
I've moved to Firefox on my MacBook. To make it a bit more macOS-like, there's
two nice plugins:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pinch-to-
zoom...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pinch-to-zoom-firefox-
osx/) for pinch-to-zoom

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/compact-
theme...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/compact-theme/) for a
theme that makes it look more Safari-like

------
mtarnovan
This might be the straw that finally pushed me to switch to some other
browser. Any thoughts on Chromium vs Firefox?

~~~
joecool1029
Edge is getting there!

Surprised that this is the straw and it wasn't the hotwording binary that was
pulled in to listen for "ok, google" without anyone's knowledge or permission.

~~~
Buge
Is it possible to disable DRM in Edge?

Did that binary ever listen to anything? And as far as I know, the hotwording
binary outrage was about Chromium, not about Chrome.

------
murkle
This is a useful link from there: chrome://flags/#prefer-html-over-flash

------
raldi
Can someone explain this in a way that assumes no prior knowledge of Widevine
or EME?

~~~
josteink
It's HTML DRM.

Most technical people are vocally opposed to it and don't want to leave a
single trace in a single server log contributing to the idea that it is widely
accepted and available.

A browser not only implementing DRM, but leaving you no way to disable it is
seriously anti-user.

But this is Google, so go figure.

~~~
raldi
So I know what HTML is, and I know what DRM is, but I don't understand what
you mean by "HTML DRM". And googling [widevine] is not helping.

~~~
josteink
HTML has always been an open standard. Every part has been open. Just by
reading the spec, you could implement a fully functional web-browser. There
were no secrets bits or black boxes.

So people went ahead did just that. They made new and exciting web-browsers,
with new and novel features, on lots and lots of platforms. And that's why the
web was a success: It was open to use by people. It was open for new clients.
Nothing was locked down.

With DRM in the HTML spec comes a big, black box: You can no longer implement
a fully compliant web browser from the spec alone. You'll need closed-source
blobs from DRM vendors, if they are willing to provide them to you, and if
they bother about compatibility with your browser, your OS, not to mention
your HW architecture.

The web used to be 100% open and 100% cross-platform. The single move of
adding DRM instead makes it a platform which now will only be 100% "compliant"
in browsers blessed by DRM vendors, on OSes blessed by DRM vendors, on HW
architectures which the DRM-vendors has bothered to implement DRM for.

It's a complete turn-around. A 100% FOSS web-browser can no longer be made.

It basically has put the 3 top DRM-vendors (Apple, Google, MS) in 100% control
of which people, and on which operating systems, can get to have a full web
experience.

I guess I don't need to argue why this is bad. You can take it from here,
right?

~~~
floatboth
No.

No one is required to ship a DRM module. You don't _need_ a DRM module if you
don't want to watch Netflix.

The spec defines a standard interface to these modules. This is not worse than
NPAPI.

~~~
alexvoda
From a technical and standards point of view, indeed it's not worse than
NPAPI.You could argue that without Flash and other plugins you could not get
the full web experience in the past. And therefore, in terms of browsers, OS's
and HW platforms were at the mercy of Adobe, Microsoft, etc. .

But as I argued in my other response, EMEs are worse because they send the
wrong message about DRM.

------
hobarrera
I strongly stand behind the complain vs DRM/forcing HDCP/etc, but:

What's the big deal with background throttling? On a day to day basis, how
many scenarios are there where you need a background tab using CPU and doing
page updates?

IMHO, it makes sense for background tabs to get throttled to save power, since
99.9% of the times, you don't need the updates (I'd say 100%, but I'm sure
there'll be at least ONE counter-example).

------
timonovici
I currently use Firefox with JS disabled, for casual browsing, and Min for
anything with video or JS
[https://minbrowser.github.io/min/](https://minbrowser.github.io/min/) \-
finally, after years, I can use a system with less than 8G of RAM.

This browser is based on Electron - does Electron also bundle this abomination
of DRM plugin?

~~~
goodplay
I use linux's control groups with very satisfactory results.

~~~
bcook
In what way do you use them?

~~~
goodplay
I designate a separate memory control group for the browser, and set both
`memory.limit_in_bytes` and `memory.memsw.limit_in_bytes` to 1.5 GB. Then the
browser is launched within that group.

The tools are the standard cgcreate and cgexec.

When the browser depletes all its memory allowance, I use killall to kill the
tab processes leaving only the chrome running. I refresh the tab I want and
carry on.

Might seem convoluted, but works extremely well in practice.

edit: It should be noted that I currently use chromium. I intend to switch to
firefox as soon as I can port this workflow to it or otherwise achieve a
similar result.

------
goslackware
It appears that DRM in Chrome might be disabled by disabling the "WidevineCDM"
(binary) component update via group policy:
[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=624128](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=624128)

~~~
jnky
I don't think that works. As per
[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=624128...](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=624128#c8)
Widevine is bundled and setting this policy just disables the updates. Also it
seems that this setting disables updates for all components, most notably
Flash. While I don't want Widevine (enabled) on my machine at all, I do want
Flash updated automatically for the rare times I have to use it.

------
rabboRubble
Funny enough in Firefox Widevine was default set to Always Activate on my
machine. Not sure how long it's been that way. There was no "ask to activate"
option. I was however able to set to "never activate". Let's see how long
before this becomes annoying.

~~~
jnky
Surfing with Widevine disabled is no problem at all. Netflix and Amazon Prime
Video do not work, though.

~~~
rabboRubble
thanks... thinking about this more, I don't even recall installing Widevine at
any point in the past. Perhaps bundled with FF? Fortunately, I never stream
Netflix / AP to my computers.

------
angryasian
Sorry but can someone explain the problem. I'm very familiar with widevine,
hls / hlse, and other various DRM type solutions. To me it appears a lot of
uninformed answers or something that's completely blown out of proportion. So
looking for someone to explain ?

~~~
jnky
What do you want to know about the problem?

I wrote the bug report that this thread is about. I think my reasons for
arguing there should be a way to disable Widevine are very clear.

To sum it up again:

\- Widevine DRM has usability issues (mostly because of HDCP) ad well as
stability issues, as outlined in the bug report.

\- I am politically opposed to HTML EME and I don't want it enabled in my
browser. I would like it better if it was unavailable to begin with.

\- From a security perspective, allowing every web site that I allow
Javascript on to talk to some dubious blob behind my back is the last thing I
want.

------
gregw2
Chrome similarly used to honor the /etc/hosts file, first by default, then via
setting. Now it always uses Google's DNS, no workarounds. I cant create
localhost aliases for dev VMs nor can I block distracting sites. I've switched
back to firefox.

~~~
Renevith
Ironically, this "feature" prevented me from getting good access to Google's
own services. I was only getting routed to a saturated Google datacenter (the
NUQ range, e.g. nuq04s01-in-f1.1e100.net). When I just blocked all those
servers, it detected that and sent me to another range of servers (LAX) that
worked much faster... but I used Firefox every time I wanted to open Google
Maps because that trick didn't work from Chrome!

------
Fej
You know what they say - switch to Firefox now, or you won't have a choice
later.

~~~
BrendanEich
Robert O'Callahan said that, but then he left. I wish he had not said it, and
so do many other heavy hitters who are or were at Mozilla.

It makes Firefox sound like a pity-f$#k, or a sin tax. At worst, a feel-good
gesture that has unintended consequences.

If you like Firefox, use it! If you like Brave, either for the speed and
safety of our 3rd party ad/tracker blocking that's on by default; or for the
post-browser, user-data-sovereignty economics we're building to sustain; then
use Brave. If you like Vivaldi, use it. And so on.

But don't make a cult out of one particular browser. Open source is not an
issue. FYI, Brave is all open source.

~~~
anonlineperson
Just please don't use IE unless its unavoidable

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imode
so, it's kind of worrying. I hope this kind of change won't be common among
browsers. I'd rather a killswitch and a moment of "ah crap, I have to enable
that" than a slew of third-party code enabled at all times.

no thanks.

~~~
angryasian
that's not how widevine works

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baybal2
Oh, thats why my hdmi splitter goes down every time on vimeo

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neurobot
i switch from Firefox only if i want to watch video on non-HTML5 website.

