Netflix on Linux without Silverlight
Beyond the Silver Screen
© Lead Image © Sofia Vlasiuk, 123RF.com
The online video store Netflix delivers video on demand to many countries. Although the service offers Linux-friendly HTML5 streams, you have to coax Netflix into actually serving them up.
With more than 50 million paying customers worldwide (July 2014) Netflix has positioned itself as a market leader among video-on-demand (VoD) providers and now has so much market power that it produces its own series and films. In contrast to its competitors, Netflix offers a Linux-friendly HTML5 player for its streams, but the VoD provider has installed many stumbling blocks for users with Linux systems. In this article, I show how to extract HTML5 streams from Netflix.
Online Viewers
Although traditional, linear TV viewing still holds sway in the US, VoD is gaining ground. By 2014Q2, US TV viewing dropped to fewer than five hours per day [1]. Viewership increased with age; viewers aged 65+ years old watched 6.8hr/wk, whereas those aged 12-24 years watched only 2.7hr/wk. Meanwhile, online viewing has increased [2], with 40% of viewers among the Gen-Xers (31-50/54 years), 30% among the Boomers (55+ years) and 12%-18% among the Millennials (18-34 years). Worldwide, the Millennials top VoD and time-shifted TV consumption (75%), followed by the Gen-Xers (54%) and the Boomers (40%) [3].
Netflix
At the time of printing, Netflix was available in 77 countries [4]. Like its competitors, Netflix offers a one-month trial period [5], and during this time, you can put the service through its paces. The offerings cost $7.99 (£5.99/EUR6.99) per month for one standard-definition stream, $8.99 (£6.99/EUR8.99) per month for two high-definition streams, and $11.99 (£8.99/EUR11.99) a month for four devices, so families can use the service without wrangling.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
There's a New Linux AI Assistant in Town
Newelle is a Linux AI assistant that can work with different LLMs and includes document parsing and profiles.
-
Linux Kernel 6.16 Released with Minor Fixes
The latest Linux kernel doesn't really include any big-ticket features, just a lot of lines of code.
-
EU Sovereign Tech Fund Gains Traction
OpenForum Europe recently released a report regarding a sovereign tech fund with backing from several significant entities.
-
FreeBSD Promises a Full Desktop Installer
FreeBSD has lacked an option to include a full desktop environment during installation.
-
Linux Hits an Important Milestone
If you pay attention to the news in the Linux-sphere, you've probably heard that the open source operating system recently crashed through a ceiling no one thought possible.
-
Plasma Bigscreen Returns
A developer discovered that the Plasma Bigscreen feature had been sitting untouched, so he decided to do something about it.
-
CachyOS Now Lets Users Choose Their Shell
Imagine getting the opportunity to select which shell you want during the installation of your favorite Linux distribution. That's now a thing.
-
Wayland 1.24 Released with Fixes and New Features
Wayland continues to move forward, while X11 slowly vanishes into the shadows, and the latest release includes plenty of improvements.
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.