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Netflix and Linux

ch33zw1z

ch33zw1z

Lifer
I've tried a few distros(Mint 8, Foresight 2.2.1, Fedora 12), but I have a feeling it's not supported. does anyone know if I can make this work outside of using a VM?
 
Netflix requires Microsoft's Silverlight and ActiveX to function. It's no coincidence that
In March 2007 Reed [Hastings] (founder of Netflix) was appointed to Microsoft Corp.'s board of directors.
Click to expand...
 
All I could find about using Netflix via Moonlight is a lot of talk about getting the DRM from Silverlight ported and integrated into Moonlight. But most of them were fairly old so I don't know if that's happened yet or not.
 
I actually did a bunch of searching around for this yesterday. Seems like the only people running Netflix on Linux are doing it through a Virtualbox, which seems kind of pointless to me.

What's the point of Moonlight if it can't run Netflix Watch Now? Isn't that what 99% of people use Silverlight for?
 
Blackjack200 said:
I actually did a bunch of searching around for this yesterday. Seems like the only people running Netflix on Linux are doing it through a Virtualbox, which seems kind of pointless to me.

What's the point of Moonlight if it can't run Netflix Watch Now? Isn't that what 99% of people use Silverlight for?
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MS's goal is to get silverlight used in place of Flash...whether or not netflix is the biggest user of it right now or not is beyond me.
 
xSauronx said:
MS's goal is to get silverlight used in place of Flash...whether or not netflix is the biggest user of it right now or not is beyond me.
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I guess I'm making the classic error of assuming that my usage profile is similar to the usage profile of a typical user.

All I know is that I've rarely seen Silverlight outside of Netflix. I understand what Microsoft is trying to do, but Flash is everywhere. I didn't even have Silverlight installed on my system before I signed up with Netflix.
 
Blackjack200 said:
I guess I'm making the classic error of assuming that my usage profile is similar to the usage profile of a typical user.

All I know is that I've rarely seen Silverlight outside of Netflix. I understand what Microsoft is trying to do, but Flash is everywhere. I didn't even have Silverlight installed on my system before I signed up with Netflix.
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Flash also has like a decade head start on Silverlight, you can't expect it to become popular as soon as MS releases it.
 
Nothinman said:
Flash also has like a decade head start on Silverlight, you can't expect it to become popular as soon as MS releases it.
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They released it almost 3 years ago and they're on their third version. I guess my point is that if MS would like some more market penetration, perhaps they should drive support for Netflix in Linux. It's already on Mac.

I know I'm certainly not going to download Moonlight until I have a use for it.
 
Blackjack200 said:
They released it almost 3 years ago and they're on their third version. I guess my point is that if MS would like some more market penetration, perhaps they should drive support for Netflix in Linux. It's already on Mac.

I know I'm certainly not going to download Moonlight until I have a use for it.
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As much as I love Linux, it's lack of support for the video DRM Netflix uses isn't going to have a huge affect on the popularity of Silverlight.
 
Fox5 said:
Yes, but Netflix does not work on the Linux version. Boxee can't support something that doesn't exist for the platform.
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Good to know, but I didn't see on the site where it said that. Maybe in the future MS+Netflix will jump on board with Linux, I know I know...wishful thinking 🙂
 
ch33zw1z said:
Good to know, but I didn't see on the site where it said that. Maybe in the future MS+Netflix will jump on board with Linux, I know I know...wishful thinking 🙂
Click to expand...

They sort of already do.

Netflix uses Silverlight, which runs on .net.
There's open source versions of both of those, Moonlight and Mono. The open source development just has to catch up with the proprietary stuff.
 
Fox5 said:
They sort of already do.

Netflix uses Silverlight, which runs on .net.
There's open source versions of both of those, Moonlight and Mono. The open source development just has to catch up with the proprietary stuff.
Click to expand...

In terms of Netflix, I thought it was due to Microsoft holding out giving the DRM away. If that's the case it might never happen.
 
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