Why does Amazon Video works on Google Chrome but not on chromium (Ubuntu)?

Question

I tried firefox, opera, chromium and google chrome. Why does amazon video only works with google chrome?

Solution

Google Chrome uses the Widevine plugin that is required by Amazon's HTML5 player to playback protected premium content.

Comments

[Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007]

What exactly happens when you try to access it with Chromium? Have you got Flash installed?

[fixer1234]

To answer "why?" requires knowing what's different between your browsers (things like plug-ins, add-ons, configuration, settings for ad blockers and tracking blockers, etc.).

[user430]

"your web browser is not compatible with amazon video. Please use google chrome". I have no flash installed. I should mention that i am using amazon.de (germany). No Plugin activated. Does chrome have any additional drm functionality that chromium doesn't have?

[Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007]

Chrome supports Amazon's HTML5 player on Linux. Other browsers do not, and so they require a working/compatible Flash plug-in so they can use Amazon's flash player instead of the HTML5 player.

[user430]

Is Widevine plugin available for chromium as well?

[Renganathan Ramamoorthy]

I think maybe in some platforms. However, it is not officially supported for various reasons: code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=429452 has the discussion in case you want to follow.

[user430]

There seems to be a PPA available for chromium with Widevine support bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chromium-browser/+bug/1371‌​274

[Luciano]

This is out of date. The latest versions of Firefox ship with the widevine plugin. You can see this by gong add-ons, and plugins. But it still won't let you playback HD content.