Web Browser for general use & unsupported media streaming

There is always going to some reason to pop up a browser. Just to look up something when trying to fix or tweak OSMC or just general web search.

Especially helpful for unsupported media streams - Kodi/ XMBC apps & add ons will come and go. Netflix and Amazon may change APIs and what not. New streaming services come up.

By default if something did not work via Add ons, a browser window allows us to watch stuff… e.g. Amazon Prime Instant video these days…

A recent webcast I wanted to watch with friends was using some other thingy… Since this is the default box connected to my TV, and its capable enough, why not allow it to do so.

Why do we have to go find another laptop or PC for a simple browser window…

My friend got their laptop and we had to plug it in via HDMI instead of my ATV1. Just wasnt fun unplugging it due a small piece missing.

PS: With so many *Nix distributions and browsers available for them, it shouldnt be so much of a pain for OSMC, OpenElec and Kodi devs to work on a Web Browser “branch” that give that functionality for all

2 Likes

A web browser on OSMC is not as simple as just installing a package. And it has been discussed very often already while it is on the roadmap it doesn’t have highest priority. So unless you are finding someone who is willing to pickup the task to develop it it will not be available soon.

See Sam’s latest reply

2 Likes

A web browser won’t enable this functionality. I am starting to think that people want the browser to watch video content, but DRM streams won’t work. There is not going to be Silverlight or Widevine support

1 Like

Hmm… I thought if a Browser with Plugin support i.e. Flash/ Silverlight/ HTML 5 video is ported from Linux then we are good. Either way thanks for replying.

Depends how you define ‘plugin support’. I don’t think MS are going to put out a Silverlight plugin for ARM Linux, in particular armv6l, and we wouldn’t be able to accelerate the video playback in HW. Kodi v17 with support for input streams is a better option in the long term

Hello, is there any advancements on the Ocelot browser you guys announced early last year? I heard the project was benched. Would it be possible to release the code you have so far so that the community could try and finish it? or is it fuctional but still in closed alpha-ish state?

You’ve posted in three different places and I believe we did move your thread to a post where it had been answered.

To start with, you have qt-bsp-osmc. This is in Git already. I would recommend you bring this up to 5.6 with WebEngine and have a look from there.

1 Like