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Badomero Schoulund

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Aug 2, 2024, 3:44:07 AM8/2/24

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I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64-bit, which I installed using the original release (not the newer 12.04.2 release), and have been successfully using netflix-desktop ever since the ppa:ehoover/compholio repository was made available. I never encountered any problems, whatsoever, until a couple of days ago.

For those that don't like messing with the console, you can just go to your home directory and either click on "View" and check "Show Hidden Files", or just press Ctrl+H, then scroll down until you see the folder labeled ".wine-browser", perform a right mouse-click on the folder, and select "Move to Trash" from the resulting menu.

I don't think it is the silverlight update which does it. It is Firefox update. So press F11 to get into window mode. Then press F10. Go to Options/Preferences ->Advanced-> updates, then disable the automatic browser update.

We want to watch netflix on the browser not the app. The login page appears but when we click on the Play button a screen appears talking about HTML5 and Silverlight. We know what HTML5 and Silverlight are but find it strange that the WebOS browser does not support this markup language on its player. Oddly YouTube works fine in the browser.

YouTube should run fine as it detects a compatible browser and then only uses HTML. Silverlight like Flash is pretty much dead in the water and no manufacturer if their browser does not support it now is going to bother building in support for it.

Yes YouTube runs fine but oddly not Netflix. I would have thought Netflix uses HTML5 for its browser and WebOS would display HTML5. No big deal just that we use the browser for everything else, email, YouTube, News channels, so we have simply got used to using Netflix from within the browser. Plus we have found Apps usually have limited functions, less security and more bugs so we avoid them. I would not want to get into a protracted discussion about whether to use apps or browser, just wondering, as you do, why a widely-used service such as Netflix would not work on a fairly-widely-used Operating System like WebOs and would there just be some simple setting that we are not aware of to enable Netflix to play content without leaving the browser.

1. Netflix's backend does not recognise the webOS browser, simple enough to cure in theory; just code in the browser ID string
2. The webOS browser does not meet the HTML5 requirements needed for Netflix, while it is pretty good it falls behind others such as Firefox, Chrome and Opera
3. The most likely culprit is probably a plugin on the site that the webOS browser cannot handle, in this case it is more than likely cadmium-playercore which is a JavaScript based player. While the webOS browser does support JavaScript it probably just does not like media players based on it, another user had a similar problem in this thread: -ken43

George. We just bought the tv. Then we realise we have been forced to use their browser. Their privacy policy basically says we have no privacy whatsoever and never will, they can watch, record, sell everything we do forever. I suppose the gloves are off in the game of big brother. Looking closer at the browser there does not seem to any 'right'click' function so we cannot use tabs, for example. Facebook renders impossibly huge on the screen with the content displayed at full width. Is there another way to browse the internet? The developers are either incompetent or like I wrote earlier the gloves are off, management designed this deliberately, they do not care about complaints and they are out for blood. So any other ways to browse?

Reply: It is down to Netflix to add the browser ID string in to their website's list of recognised browsers, it would also be down to them to ensure the site works in the webOS browser.

Reply: HTML coding is relatively straight forward, it is just down to the willingness of the content providers to move to pure HTML5/CCS3 when they have been wed to other technologies such as Flash and JavaScript for so many years that the change becomes too immense a challenge for them to consider. This is where the app has the advantage over the browser. webOS apps can be written as Packaged or Hosted, the former is installed in its entirety on the TV. The later is installed on the content provider's server and is accessed via a browser (LG's terminology link hidden, please login to view) essentially the app opens the webOS browser without toolbars etc and displays the remote content on the TV. Hosted apps enables the content provider to update as often as they like without the need to have it retested and posted in the app store by LG. So it does pose the question is Netflix can produce an app that is essentially using the webOS browser why are they not able to recode the website in pure HTML5/CCS3 to do the same job. I imagine their answer would be that they produce apps for different platforms so why would you use the browser.

Reply: LG are definitely not going to re-write the browser for Flash, it is resource heavy, bloated and highly insecure plus Adobe dropped support for mobile platforms in 2011 and are retiring the product in less than two years. No TV Smart platform to my knowledge supports Flash, it is just too much hassle. When it comes to JavaScript there are guidelines for its use with webOS (), but I imagine that getting the provider of your JS based media player to rewrite and compile it for webOS may be easier said than done. Hence we are back to the app vs pure browser argument.

Reply: Another way to browse, screen sharing of some description I would imagine. I am one of those people who does not really use the browser on my TV so I struggle to empathise with those who do. The Facebook problem probably purely down to market share issue, with webOS being only a small percentile of users (if it topped 1% I would be very surprised) so does not really come to their attention with any sort of urgency. Facebook would I guess concentrate on mobile (in these case meaning phones etc) platforms spending their time and money making to work and look good for those users.

I have noticed this before when I have tried to report buggy software, errors or oversights in design of various products. People respond in various ways. Some hijack the thread and change the subject. Some just reply with sarcasm and insults - without actually offering anything useful to the discussion. Most people are genuinely helpful though and I always appreciate that thank you George. Other times you have a company employee who defends the company's position and seeks to minimise the importance of the original complaint, or to diminish the problem is some way.

what you are talking about is some sort of convenience for the company. Notice you do not mention the customer. As you would have it the company wants to do something and they are not really thinking about the customer experience. Most of the apps that I have attempted to use on my phones for example, are must dumb-downed versions of the original webpage or application. whereas the original page or program had extensive preparation prior to release, that was old-school. The apps on the other hand appear to be written by a teenager fresh out of high-school. Many of the phone apps I used were just plain unusable. The would seize, crash, or have only a minimum of controls. All of which as I see it designed to force us the consumer sheep to just accept whatever slack coding the company allowed on its servers before 1, the team went on a break or 2, the CEO bought a holiday home with a boat.

I need to use a web browser for my job and if LG wants to dumb down its products that does not help me at all. I thought I might try contacting the forum just to test the waters but apart from your lengthy replies justifying the poor-quality app no joy so far. That just leaves me with returning the tv and moving to another brand. If as you say LG does not think it is important for a keyboard to have a 'delete' button, or for browsers to have a 'download' function, the ability to open and scroll through multiple tabs, to display facebook properly or use schoolboy-level HTML for its media player, to run Netflix, used by hundreds of millions of people, I can only ascribe it I wrote earlier to two possible things:

2. management knows that their 'app' is rubbish and they just have a cavalier 'we do not care about you or your needs' approach because 'our sales figures are up and the company is posting a profit. Bye' ?

So George the issue is not whether the company uses flash, silverlight, html5 or some other system, it is about the customer experience and in my case this silly little excuse for a browser is frankly pathetic. As I wrote earlier it surprises me that some workers have a Tuesday morning management meeting and decide to omit most of the useful features of a browser, without having someone else in the room to challenge their hasty and ill-conceived ideas. There will of course always be employees who, having made bad decisions, will then hide behind a wall of technical jargon, blame others for errors in the app, or just resign and move on to another role in the company, after the damage is done. Given the propensity of these companies to make their developers unreachable and immune from customer feedback I hold out little hope, in this particular case for an actual solution to my original post.