Mozilla Holds Its Nose And Supports DRM Video In Firefox

The open-source browser gets a proprietary Adobe software so people can watch video from sites like Netflix over the Web. Supporting it is better than losing Firefox users, Mozilla says.

Mozilla has agreed, reluctantly, to build a Web standard called Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) into its Firefox browser, a step that enables use of copy-protected video from Netflix and other sources on the Web.

The nonprofit organization has opposed EME, a technology that lets a browser perform digital rights management (DRM) tasks such as restricting copying or ensuring that rights to watch a video expire after a certain period of time. But on Wednesday, Mozilla said it's enabling EME because it's becoming widely enough used that its absence from Firefox would push people toward other browsers.

"Looking at the competitive landscape, every single major player in the browser market has adopted this spec and the prop module that comes with it," said Chief Technology Officer Andreas Gal. "We are concerned that if we don't do this, our users don't have access to a significant part of the Web."...