Widevine on Brave Browser

@Mattches

Additionally, when you toggled the extension on/off in your main profile, did you relaunch the browser before attempting to visit Netflix again?

Yes, when I toggled the extension on/off in my main profile, I have to relaunch the browser before attempting to visit Netflix again. However, when I was prompted in the first time to install Widevine I selected Block and Do not ask again. I don’t know if is due to that!

@Mattches

So I’m actually now curious about whether or not Netflix (or any site requiring Widevine content) works ? If you have to toggle “on”, then you should be able to login and view content regardless of whether or not you selected block in the permissions prompt.

I created a new profile, turned ON Widevine and I was able to login and view the content of Netflix without being prompted. In conclusion, if I turn ON Widevine I will not be prompted to allow the installation and to run Widevine in any website that requires it! In my opinion this is how it should be.

@Mattches

Conclusions:
1-Every time that I toggled the extension on/off in any of my profiles, I have to relaunch the browser.
2-Using a certain profile and with Widevine OFF in brave://settings/extensions, when I try to access for the first time to a website that requires Widevine I will be prompted to allow the installation and to run Widevine. After that, with the same profile and if I select Do not ask again, I will never be prompted to allow the installation and to run Widevine on websites that requires it.
3-If Widevine is ON in brave://settings/extensions I will never be prompted to allow the installation and to run Widevine in any website that requires it. This is true even if it is the first time that I try to access to a website that requires Widevine on that profile.

I’m still curious to understand why Do not ask again blocks the Widevine prompt forever for the current user profile.

@Rethanis

I really don’t know. Can you tell me where is located on macOS profile folder? Thanks.

All right, I figured it out.

When a user selects Do not ask again, Brave inserts an entry into a file named Preferences which is located inside user’s current user profile’s directory.

For Windows, the file is located in C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Profile X where Profile X is the affected user profile’s directory.

The inserted entry is:
"ask_widevine_install":false

Deleting the entry re-triggers the Widevine prompt.

Test successfully passed using the website https://bitmovin.com/demos/drm.

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@Rethanis

I saw the mention to that folder Profile X on other topic, but I can’t find it on macOS! I think profile folder on macOS is all default folder inside ~/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/. I found the Preferences file that you are talking about inside the mentioned default folder. I think that the flag that you are talking about is the one selected in the screenshot! Thanks.

Yes, that must be the correct flag.

Unfortunately, I can’t provide the exact path to the file because I don’t have a MacOS machine.

On Windows, opening C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data opens a directory where you can see all user profile directories. The main profile directory is named Default, any other user profile directory is Profile X where X is a random number. Distinguishing user profile directories happens by opening them and checking the Google Profile.ico file - that is the user profile icon of the user profile whose directory you have opened.

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@Rethanis

I’m completely new to Brave Browser. I am looking for a browser to replace Safari on macOS and to use it on other machines with Linux. I tested all browsers because I deleted Firefox browser from all my machines after this article We need more than deplatforming. Until now I am very happy with Brave browser. Thank you :+1:

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Great support @Rethanis.
@filSec sorry that was so convoluted – eventually I had a team member respond explaining that the user’s choice at the prompt was stored in the pref file (and that brave://prefs-internals exists) – always something more to learn here.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any further questions or concerns.

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Yes, indeed. @Rethanis was tireless in helping me.
@Mattches Is good to now that brave://prefs-internals exists, however, it is not editable in browser.
This wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t feel the need to figure out how things work. Anyway, it was just being me. Maybe I could help others in the future.
Thank you both. :+1:

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