NetFlix on PowerPC (Is it Possible?)

I admit that I regularly get e-mails asking me how to watch Netflix on a PowerPC, so I thought I had better answer this question to the masses.  In the past I did some research but I didn’t have time to finish the post.  Here are some of the links and resources that I have to share with you:

I don’t have a Netflix account so I’m not sure if works or not.

This Link it says to Delete InstallationCheck from the “Show Package Contents” > “Resources”.

http://www.ehow.com/how_8180968_stream-netflix-powerpc.html

Please if you have some time to share your results with our community we really appreciate.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

Here is very interesting, the steps with Firefox worked well.  It’s something to consider.

http://www.mactech.com/2009/01/19/netflix-silverlight-20-powerpc-macs

Please share your results with us.

 

13 comments on “NetFlix on PowerPC (Is it Possible?)

  1. Netflix has one “addons” on “XBMC” a must have on your mac ppc because of how it handles all media, and offers free movies and live TV (google xbmc for more details) one of the “Eden” versions is supported on mac ppc, if anyone needs it, I can find a link for you. Am just another ppc user trying to help

  2. I saw this quite a while ago and finding the 2.0 version of Silverlight took quite a while. Even after successfully installing Silverlight, I couldn’t get Netflix to start. I believe that it complained about the old version, though it has been quite a while since I last tried.

    • I’ve tried installing Silverlight (from 2.0 on up) and it does not work even if you remove the system check. The installer does run, but the browser (Firefox or Safari) won’t recongnize it and it doesn’t show in the plug-ins. On another note, you can get Hulu to run if you use the hacked Flash that’s out there (it shows up as a newer version to Hulu) and change the version of Firefox in about: config to 17.xx or higher. Maybe what is needed is a hacked Silverlight that is version 1.0, which will install, but tells Netflix that it’s 5.x. It looks like html5 is going to be tied to Microsuck again.

  3. Can anyone try that? I wanted to install Silverlight 2.0, but I experienced serious troubles with deleting one file in order to fool installer.

  4. I read both links and tried it. Everything was working up until actually playing a movie. It asked me to update to the latest version of Silverlight. So unless someone can devise a way to fool Netflix into recognizing Silverlight as the latest version, we’re stuck.

    Awhile back, there was a trick with Flash and making it think it was the latest version. Maybe something similar can be done?

  5. Well I tried and nope, it didnt work. Silverlight installs, but the system still saw it as Intel, plus when I logged into Netflix, it didnt find the install of Silverlite and you wind up chasing your tail trying and trying to install the same thing to get the same results. Nothing.

  6. Hello!

    I don’t think if it is possível. I have tried first method and it doesn’t worked with me. Maybe I’ll try the second

  7. Well, after a LOT more searching, I’ve come across this:
    – The Silverlight site provides a Silverlight 1.0 install for PowerPC Macs
    – PowerPC was dropped from 2.0 (the links provided contain only Intel binaries) but might still have been supported in 2.0 beta 2 according to an internet post
    – I have not been able to find the Silverlight 2.0 beta 2 (or 1) dmg file to verify this
    – Netflix at one time required Silverlight 2.0 but now requires Silverlight 4.0 (tested 2.0 on an Intel Mac)

    But there is still hope, for it seems that Netflix is moving towards HTML5 video (with some DRM extensions) as example in ChromeOS. Unfortunately there is more involved than just setting the UserAgent to ChromeOS. If TenFourFox/AuroraFox support these DRM extensions, then Netflix could once again play on PowerPC Macs.

    Otherwise, PowerPC Mac users need to resort to hacks involving other systems (like LocationFree) to view Netflix.

    References:
    http://www.microsoft.com/getsilverlight/
    http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=10895869&postcount=19
    https://support.netflix.com/en/node/6597#silverlight-4
    http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/15/4228248/netflix-plans-its-move-from-microsoft-silverlight-to-html5-video
    http://lowendmac.com/2013/get-netflix-working-on-your-g4-mac/

  8. Everything worked fine for me, up until it needed activeX. And obviously activeX isn’t supported on powerpc.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s