32-bit Firefox 89 quit playing DRM. Is it a Widevine issue?

[j0hn]

Hello everyone.

I'm using Slacko puppy 6.3.2, 32-bit, and Firefox 89.0. Last couple of days playing DRM-content (Netflix etc) doesn't work at all. It appears to be a Widevine issue. Firefox installs Widevine version 4.10.1582.2 instead of the latest version (4.10.2209.x). Does anyone know how to fix this problem?

[mikewalsh]

Hallo, @j0hn . And to the kennels..!

Um; this is becoming something of a 'sticking' point across the entire Linux community, TBH. It's not that "your browser is no longer supported"; that's a load of hogwash, since Firefox keeps itself up to date at all times.

Rather, it's the "sharp end of the wedge" insofar that everybody is dropping 32-bit stuff like a red-hot poker. The 32-bit WideVine DRM module has NOT been updated for ages.....and it doesn't look like it will be, either. WideVine itself is a proprietary Google product, and Google themselves have been pushing everyone toward 64-bit for several years. Devs may be able to re-compile the browser code for 32-bit, but the DRM stuff is strictly only available from Google themselves (and they're NOT making the source code available, 'cos they don't WANT you producing 32-bit versions.)

Google would much prefer that 32-bit just rolled-over & died a quiet, unlamented death. After all, there's already rumours floating about that 128-bit architecture will be the next big thing in a couple of years time.....when it does 'materialise', the 32 GB RAM that my current machine sports will be regarded in the same light that an old 32-bit machine with 512 MB or 1 GB RAM is ATM. When that day comes, machines will be supplied, OOTB, with maybe 512 GB or even 1 TB of RAM, maybe even more.....

So; I think if you want to use NetFlix, Hulu, Spotify - anything that requires DRM 'verification' to function - from now on, there's no choice but to move to a 64-bit Puppy. NetFlix has quit working for me in MY pair of 32-bit Pups, so.....they won't be in the kennels much longer. This day has been coming for a long while; it's just taken rather longer to get here than I originally expected.

Way of the world, mate. This is called 'progress'.....but it's not really surprising, given that 64-bit capable CPUs HAVE been around for the best part of 20 years.....and the number of still-working 32-bit boxes is rapidly dwindling.

(*shrug*)

Mike.

[vtpup]

Maddening.....

[mikewalsh]

Maddening.....

Aye; it IS.

TBH, I don't know why I bother with 32-bit Pups any more. This new HP tower would run anything.....anything at all. Butttt.....well; I just like 'em, I guess. And we still don't have anywhere NEAR as many 64-bit Puppies to choose from yet as there are 32-bitzers.....

(*sigh...*)

The situation's improving all the time, though. And, in all honesty, there's no end of decent 64-bit Puppy boxes out there you can pick up for a song....

Mike.

[ozsouth]

Same thing happened with flash - 32bit was abandoned at 11.2, whilst 64bit went on to 32.0 before flash's demise.
Since (particularly) Tahpup64-6.0.6 in 2017, I've used 64bit Pups, as I decided 32bit was on the way out & the quality & choices are now there. @j0hn If your machine can run 64bit, perhaps try Xenial64, Slacko64-6.9.9.9 or similar.

[vtpup]

For me the maddening part is that a single company has the power to turn off complete functionality for major websites, after they created that dependency in the first place.

There's a difference between ceasing support of something, and completely switching off its function across the net. In one day, websites stop working. It's really a demonstration of power. "Look, we decide what you can do."

That there are no alternative DRM systems employed by media websites in parallel, rather than a single source, is not only unfortunate, but dangerous.

The continuing consolidation of all aspects of Internet functionality into only one uncontrolled source company will some day prove disastrous. Not just for paid DRM sites, but for employment, for information, for the freedom to make individual life choices at all.

[rockedge]

Sometimes there is no substitute for 32 bit performance. I ended up doing the murga forum conversion now 8 times, with version 8 run on a Tahr 6.0.5 set up with a full powered LAMP. The 32 bit performance on a DELL Optiplex 990 is solid and fast. Very stable and did the job in half the time with the exact same setup of LAMP but running 64 bit and in Bionic64. The 32 bit Tahr outperforms the 64 bit Bionic in certain situations quite significantly on the same machine.

I am running here another excellent 32 bit OS in a VirtualBox machine. WeeDog32-Void which runs Firefox v89.0 32 bit nicely.

I am going to experiment today with the WeeDog's Firefox and see what will play and what won't. What I'm reading here is troubling.

Screenshot(12).png (131.37 KiB) Viewed 1024 times

[rcrsn51]

Sometimes there is no substitute for 32 bit performance. I ended up doing the murga forum conversion now 8 times, with version 8 run on a Tahr 6.0.5 set up with a full powered LAMP. The 32 bit performance on a DELL Optiplex 990 is solid and fast. Very stable and did the job in half the time with the exact same setup of LAMP but running 64 bit and in Bionic64. The 32 bit Tahr outperforms the 64 bit Bionic in certain situations quite significantly on the same machine.

I am running here another excellent 32 bit OS in a VirtualBox machine. WeeDog32-Void which runs Firefox v89.0 32 bit nicely.

I am going to experiment today with the WeeDog's Firefox and see what will play and what won't. What I'm reading here is troubling.

There are two variables in this experiment. How can you be sure which one is causing the result?

[darry19662018]

Does this Chrome trick work ??? ....

Via a user agent editing extention or by starting Chromium with the -user-agent switch, remove the reference to "Ubuntu Chromium/XX.0.XXXX.XX", e.g.]

Reference: https://gist.github.com/maxwelleite - Take a gander at the widevine page listed.

[mikewalsh]

Does this Chrome trick work ??? ....

Via a user agent editing extention or by starting Chromium with the -user-agent switch, remove the reference to "Ubuntu Chromium/XX.0.XXXX.XX", e.g.]

Reference: https://gist.github.com/maxwelleite - Take a gander at the widevine page listed.

Nice idea, but that wouldn't work, Darren. If you have a look around peebee's Sourceforge repo, the directory that maxwelleite's script references for the curl/wget operation no longer exists. I guess Peter's done some re-organising since then.... Even if it DID still work, it would only pull-in 4.10.1582; no 32-bit versions have been built since then. 4.10.2209 is the one you currently need...and that's only ever been built as a 64-bit module.

---------------------------------------------

This is NOT NetFlix's fault; they're simply upgrading requirements in the same steady, gradual way they have done for years. This is Google, determined to dictate to folks what they can & can't do, and to mould the entire web to their own vision of how it should be. And by having a monopolistic stranglehold on certain key software components, I'm afraid they're in rather a good position to do just that....

Mike.

[darry19662018]

Yep that sucks.

[xenial]

I do not use netflix at all or indeed any other premium rate sites so it is likely inconsequential to me.
I would like to continue using 32bit browsers if possible and i am aware they are scarce,but for me a 64bit computer has no attraction or anything i could possibly need except for perhaps a wider scope of browsers available.

The chromium i have installed now could possibly last another year without an update.It plays youtube which is the only media site i tend to use,

So very sad to see mr berners-lees creation being eaten alive by megatech..it is totally the opposite of the free information highway he envisaged.

[stevie pup]

Probably won't affect me either, the only media site I use is also youtube, and I don't use that very often. But it's the principle of the thing, virtually everything that Google does is just so wrong on every level, as it is with other big tech companies. They just want to rule the world.

I won't go into detail here as this has been fully covered in another thread I started a while ago, but I use 32 bit Bionic on an under powered little netbook with no problems at all. But I had loads of issues when I tried to run 64 bit on same machine due to the lack of RAM. To get a significant advantage from 64 bit you need more than 4Gb of RAM.

[mikewalsh]

Probably won't affect me either, the only media site I use is also youtube, and I don't use that very often. But it's the principle of the thing, virtually everything that Google does is just so wrong on every level, as it is with other big tech companies. They just want to rule the world.

I won't go into detail here as this has been fully covered in another thread I started a while ago, but I use 32 bit Bionic on an under powered little netbook with no problems at all. But I had loads of issues when I tried to run 64 bit on same machine due to the lack of RAM. To get a significant advantage from 64 bit you need more than 4Gb of RAM.

This relatively new HP midi-tower of mine "only" shipped with 4GB of RAM when I got it, January last year. Over the course of last year, that doubled - to 8 GB - then doubled again - to 16 GB - and finally doubled again to hit its maximum of 32 GB. Nothing to do with being a showoff, or anything like that.

I'd had years confined to just 3 GB of ancient DDR1. With all the lockdowns & restrictions last year, I wasn't spending a fraction of what I would normally, and since this rig was so much more capable than the previous 17-yr old incumbent - and I've started working a lot with video-processing - that RAM does get used. On top of which, I swore to myself that when the time DID come to replace the old Compaq I was going to max it if I possibly could. I never wanted to be limited by RAM again.....and I found some pretty good deals last year, so I took full advantage of them! (Believe it or not, that 32GB of genuine Crucial RAM, which I found on Amazon, actually cost me less than the 16GB that I bought direct from the Crucial site...)

Depending on what you were after last year, prices were either ridiculous, or unbelievable. Ah, hell; why not? It's only money, like....

Mike.

[spiritwild]

Per their site

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/en ... =inproduct

Google Widevine ended support for 32-bit Linux on May 31, 2021. Only 64-bit Linux is supported.