HBO Now on Linux has never been straightforward. When Firefox 52 was released in March, Mozilla killed our workaround to stream HBO Now, thus furthering the difficulty. While a good security move, this leaves Linux users in the dust.
Beginning in Firefox version 52, support for NPAPI plugins in Firefox has ended, except for Adobe Flash. Some of the plugins that will no longer load include Java, Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Acrobat. See this compatibility document for details.
Over the past few years, Firefox has implemented various Web APIs so that websites can do the same things they’ve always done without plugins, so you will most likely not notice any change to your browsing experience.
Well, I wouldn’t notice unless I was one of the many linux users that stream HBO. (My emphasis added)
Now, HBO has never officially supported Linux (so 2014), but we had the pipelight workaround. Using this required one to installed a program that installed a custom version of Wine to run the Windows versions of Flash, Silverlight, and other similar plugins. This was then ‘piped’ through NPAPI plugins in Firefox, thus allowing Linux users to stream HBO.
With the removal of NPAPI plugins, it kills our use of pipelight. Granted, pipelight is no longer actively developed by Michael Muller. So this was only a matter of time. Don’t despair though, there is still a way we can stream HBO on our beloved linux boxes.
HBO Now on Linux. Again
Thankfully, user Teemu Leisti on AskUbuntu has found the next workaround.
Streaming through Wine, no thanks.
Unfortunately, the solution I gave on AskUbuntu stopped working within a month. I then used HBO on an Android tablet, until I had to update the HBO player app to a version that was too new to be supported by my tablet. I then gave up HBO altogether.
Guess it’s time to end my subscription after switching to Ubuntu – it’s the only streaming service I’ve ever actually felt worth paying for, but if they’re going to prioritize flash-based DRM that makes it unusable well I guess it’s off to the high seas for me.