Users will need to install Firefox and a workaround

Aug 20, 2015 07:51 GMT  ·  By

Hulu is an American streaming service that provides users with a selection of TV shows, movies, and pretty much anything in between. The online company was using Flash for the service, but now they have added a new layer of DRM and Linux users are no longer able to use it.

It seems weird that Hulu would choose to make upgrades (loosely used term) to Flash and cut off a lot of users who are now forced to resort to various workarounds or other browsers in order to make it work. Hulu is one of the oldest streaming services around, and you might think that they should have learned their lesson until now, but that's not the case. In fact, the same kind of problem is plaguing the Amazon Prime service, although that's hardly any consolation.

As it stands right now, Linux users with Google Chrome can't use neither Hulu nor Amazon Prime because they both employ a Flash + DRM combination that is simply unacceptable for Google. The only solution is to install Firefox and use an old abstraction layer called HAL, which has been deprecated for three years.

To make things even worse, Amazon Prime recommends its subscribers to use Microsoft's Silverlight. It shouldn't be surprising to find that Silverlight is not available on Linux. This means that users need to install a new plugin called  Pipelight (a wrapper for using Windows plugins in Linux browsers).

Funny enough, Netflix engineers understood that Linux users are also paying subscriptions, and they have enabled HTML5 video for them, and now this streaming service is available natively in Google Chrome.

Linux users as second class citizens

A Reddit user mentioned this issue, and it looks like things are just heating up. It has nothing to do with the distribution itself, just with Google Chrome. It's unlikely that Google will suddenly have a change of heart and allow for the support of the old Flash, so it's left to Hulu to make things right again.

"This week Hulu, a major source for legally streaming TV programs in the United States, moved from Flash to Flash+DRM. Unfortunately for Linux users the only Flash that supports DRM is the old Flash 11.2 that is only receiving security updates. This means that Pepper Flash in Chrome/Chromium doesn't work with Hulu," wrote the user on Reddit.

"I contacted Hulu; I am (for now) a Hulu Plus Subscriber and I received the following response: ... I have made our developers aware of the situation, and we will continue to investigate this issue here. We do hope to have a resolution for you there as soon as possible. I know this won't fix the issue, but I went ahead and credited your account with a free month," he added.

There is no guarantee that things will change anytime soon, so you need to consider whether you want the Hulu Plus subscription all that much, considering that they don't really care about Linux users.