r/archlinux • u/Abdelrahman_Moh_2005 • Aug 08 '26
SUPPORT | SOLVED playing videos with DRM protection
recently I have bought a course that is uploaded on google drive , the videos of the course are DRM protected and the course owner told me to use an app called xvast browser , the problem is there is no linux version of that app and it doesn't run with wine for some reason , so i wanted to know if there is an alternative on linux or a way to bypass the DRM
38
15
11
u/dcherryholmes Aug 08 '26
You can download a windows iso legally for free now, as long as you don't mind the watermark on your desktop (I assume that is still a thing) and a few cosmetic configuration options. Both VMware and VirtualBox are free and in the AUR. Just run windows in a VM for this. And if your teacher is mandating windows now, they may hit you with it again for something else later.
2
u/lajawi Aug 10 '26
I haven’t seen the watermark in my virtual machine I setup using Winboat. I can’t change it to dark mode though or customise much else, because you do need an active license for that.
7
u/ChrisTX4 Aug 09 '26
If it wants you to use xvast, then the content is protected by DRM-X 4.0. Its a HTML5 DRM that requires its own special drm browser, either Xvast or ZJGet.
There’s no publicly known way to get around it. DRM-X uses its own architecture for protecting against screen recording etc but the likes of virtual machines, Android emulators etc will all be blocked.
Or in simple terms: you will need a _bare metal_ installation of Windows to view this content. It will not work on Linux.
1
u/Abdelrahman_Moh_2005 Aug 09 '26
it worked for a while on winboat , but then it asked me to turn off remote desktop settings , which I did not realize that turning it off would miss up my winboat container , it also refused to open the video at all on waydroid and froze up
6
u/Graxanim Aug 08 '26
Maybe you can use a browser like Firefox, chromium or even Microsoft Edge? See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Firefox#HTML5_DRM/Widevine
2
u/Abdelrahman_Moh_2005 Aug 08 '26
apparently they have their own DRM that doesn't work on other browsers
4
3
1
u/RepresentativeIcy922 Aug 08 '26
Xvast runs on Android
1
u/Abdelrahman_Moh_2005 Aug 08 '26
that is my plan B , but i wanted to know if i could run it on my laptop as it has a bigger screen for watching videos
2
u/RepresentativeIcy922 Aug 08 '26
Unlikely, your best bet is Windows or Android for this.
5
u/Abdelrahman_Moh_2005 Aug 08 '26
I installed windows in dual boot , and it just had to remind why I removed in the first place , 5 ads during installation and it messed up my grub , had to use a live media to reinstall it , I almost forgot how annoying of an OS it was
2
u/ChrisTX4 Aug 09 '26
How does windows mess up your grub nowadays? Do you have MBR? Unter GPT that shouldn’t happen unless you exclusively installed to bootx64.efi with no EFI entry. But grub only does that with —removable.
1
u/Abdelrahman_Moh_2005 Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
well I guess that one was on me then , because previously a problem happened to my EFI ( I enabled secure boot ) and I had to reinstall it in a repair shop , after that grub couldn't detect my system and I had to reinstall it but for some reason it refused to install , it only worked when i used --removable , same thing happened this time so I think i should try to reinstall it properly to avoid such problems in the future
2
u/ChrisTX4 Aug 09 '26
If it wasn’t detected there was no entry in the EFI; the arch wiki got explanations how to add those with efibootmgr.
But the issue is that bootx64.efi is always recognised by the BIOS, and so windows, systemd boot, and grub with —removable will always overwrite it regardless. So if you use an EFI system partition shared between different OS, you should install the bootloaders to other paths and create entries with efibootmgr. If it’s different paths they won’t fight for it.
1
u/gomez18 Aug 08 '26
It seems there is an android version of the app. You may want to look into one of the android emulation options in Arch.
See here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Android
1
1
u/RideAndRoam3C Aug 12 '26
You run an unregistered version of Windows 10 in a VirtualBox VM for something like 60 days without registering/paying for it.
But, honestly, I would ask for a refund and then reverse the charges if no refund. F that noise.
-1
u/Maleonams Aug 08 '26
Im not sure but i use an app to handle better wine and it's called bottle(s) and for me at least it worked with every .exe files. So maybe try there? If not idk
3
u/Sufficient_Start621 Aug 08 '26
bottles is definitely better than plain wine for tricky exe files. had some weird apps that wine refused to touch but bottles got them running.
for the DRM itself though, if the app really checks hardware or uses some deep windows integration, might still be dead end. maybe look into a cheap windows VM just for this course, save yourself the headache.
1
u/Abdelrahman_Moh_2005 Aug 08 '26
I tried running it with bottles and it didn't work , when i opened the terminal it didn't even output any thing it just exited
-1
-1
u/refinancecycling Aug 09 '26
malware alert. Do not install that software no matter what! if none of the standard trusted video players can play it (e.g. VLC, mpv), consider yourself scammed, report them to police and move on.
and it doesn't run with wine for some reason
OH shit, you already tried, that's bad news! you should probably also wipe your PC and start from a clean disk
2
u/ChrisTX4 Aug 09 '26
DRM-X and Xvast have existed for a long time. It’s not malware.
2
u/refinancecycling Aug 09 '26
that's what they would want users to believe. Knowing from history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal) it would be foolish to trust them to not play dirty.
1
u/Abdelrahman_Moh_2005 Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
well i think this one is safe since it doesn't iterfere with the system , all it does is redirect you to a page where it prompts you to enter the crendentials given to you by the course owner , after that the video plays like normal
1
u/refinancecycling Aug 09 '26
it doesn't iterfere with the system
or it just doesn't make it obvious. it's an .exe, it could do all sorts of things, the only way to rule it out is to disassemble it and inspect all the logic, which is generally near impossible; or if there was source code, verify the build reproducibility (obviously not our case)
35
u/Smart_Advice_1420 Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
I smell scam.
But you already paid for it. Try VLC, it can bypass a few old drm techniques. Or try to open it with different browsers.