The main reason I always install Google Chrome on any linux distro I happen to be running is that Chrome will by default play videos from Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu without a hitch, whereas Firefox will not. In fact, neither will Chromium.
This is because Google has built proprietary flash graphics inside of Chrome.
However, after listening to several podcasts about how Google is sharing our information and how tracker cookies are being placed on our machines without our knowledge or consent by Chrome, I decided to have another look at the problem of getting Firefox to play online video content from the above mentioned providers.
This tutorial is for ARCH LINUX. If you’d like a similar fix for FEDORA LINUX, then click here.
Fixing Video for Arch Linux
Here’s what I discovered: It’s an easy fix.
First of all, I recommend you to install yay, which is an alternative to yaourt. To do this simply go to the command line and type in the following:$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
$ cd yay
$ makepkg -si
Onceyay
is installed then you need to install flash as follows:yay -S flashplugin
$ sudo pacman -Syyu firefox
Next, if you haven’t already, install Firefox as follows: $ sudo pacman -Syyu firefox
At this point, I needed to reboot and/or logout and login. I then loaded Firefox and navigated to Amazon Prime videos. Try to watch a video and it will give you an error, but you’ll notice in the upper left corner of Firefox a little message will appear that says something like “Enable DRM content?” Click yes, and from that time on you’ll be able to watch Amazon Prime videos, Netflix and Hulu all from withing Firefox.
Now you can ditch Chrome. They’re tracking you.