castlabs

electron-releases

Python2019–2024

castlabs / electron-releases

electron-releases

Castlabs Electron for Content Security

Security & Privacy Mobile & Desktop

Explore on GitHub Read Hacker News discussions

6Distinct people

9Mentions

0Explicit recommenders

298GitHub stars

REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Castlabs Electron for Content Security

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year9 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2019-03-11 13:11:53 UTC to 2024-01-03 17:19:46 UTC.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges

UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
Period	Start (UTC)	End (exclusive, UTC)	Mentions	Submissions	Comments
2019	2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	4	1	3
2020	2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	0	0	0
2021	2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	4	0	4
2022	2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	0	0	0
2023	2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	0	0	0
2024	2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	1	0	1

What Hacker News says

9 sources

btown·Jan 3, 2024

FYI a number of streaming sites won't work - while this has Widevine, it does not have Verified Media Path (VMP) which verifies that you're running a signed binary. https://github.com/Alex313031/Thorium-Win-AVX2/issues/84#iss... https://github.com/castlabs/electron-releases is an interesting Electron fork with full Widevine+VMP support - but it's very much closed-source. EDIT: wrote this before I saw other comments - be aware that Thorium likely has NSFW content in old commits and should not be cloned locally in corporate environments. AFAIK this doesn't apply to the castlabs link above which is an entirely unrelated project.

In Thorium – Radioactive Chromium Fork

danShumway·Jan 21, 2021

The Widevine team themselves suggested building the same exact system on top of a proprietary Electron fork. > The Castlabs Electron implementation would be your only path of support. Otherwise, we don't have the resources to support at this time. So Electron is not the reason this request was denied. You're not wrong that Google is blocking login from embedded webviews, but the thing is that Google is separately blocking logins from embedded webviews. It's a different situation that's unrelated to their Widevine licensing. If what you were saying was correct, then the Castlabs Electron framework[0] wouldn't have Widevine support, and it does. It's not about embedded engines, it's about Open Source. ---- > which is why the inclusion of DRM in webstandards was widely debated in the first place. My take on this is that you would be right -

Read the rest

- it would be weird to complain about Google refusing to set up a licensing scheme for Widevine -- if not for the fact that: A) they were a part of the campaign for DRM inclusion in the first place, even while people argued that it would hamper browser innovation, so the problem we're in is in no small part their fault, B) the fact that they control both Widevine licensing and the dominant desktop browser (and the fact that they have used that control to harass even mainstream browsers like Brave[1]) constitutes something at least adjacent to anticompetitive behavior, and C) the fact that they're willing to license Widevine to Open Source browsers like Brave and Firefox suggests that there isn't a fundamental problem with Open Source that means it couldn't interact with this DRM in a way that's acceptable to Google. Add those 3 points together, and I feel like it's reasonable to ask Google what they're doing and why they're doing it, and to expect them to have some kind of answer as to how they're going to maintain control of Widevine without cutting off the legs of browser innovation and using web standards to shut out competitors. [0]: https://github.com/castlabs/electron-releases [1]: https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/10449#issueco...

In I tried creating a web browser and Google blocked me (2019)

DelightOne·Jan 21, 2021

Thanks! I see it as unlikely that they will release the code, because castlabs also seem to have a business of auditing implementations for consideration for the widevine program: https://github.com/castlabs/electron-releases/wiki/EVS#3pl

In I tried creating a web browser and Google blocked me (2019)

heinrich5991·Jan 20, 2021

The link [0] still seems to work and redirects to https://github.com/castlabs/electron-releases/discussions/24 for me.

In I tried creating a web browser and Google blocked me (2019)

smaddock·Jan 20, 2021

Blog post author here. Since this post, there's now an option available for DRM-enabled Electron. However, it's only available through a single vendor, castLabs [0]. This is a closed source, downstream effort which means no modifications can be made to Electron itself. All changes must make it upstream to show up in this fork. When asked whether they would eventually merge it upstream, they didn't provide a clear answer [1]. I also wrote a followup blog post with more detail on the current state of DRM options on the web [2]. Spoilers: it's not great. Regardless of all of these problems, I still hold an interest in browser development and have been working towards making Electron a viable option for building a browser [3]. [0] https://github.com/castlabs/electron-releases [1] https://github.com/castlabs/electron-releases/discussions/24 [2

Read the rest

] https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/the-end-of-indie-web-br... [3] https://github.com/samuelmaddock/electron-browser-shell

In I tried creating a web browser and Google blocked me (2019)

lostmyoldone·Apr 2, 2019

This certainly isn't short, but I don't know how to make it shorter, as I don't know what you don't know, and what you want to know. You need a DRM "capable" video component to be allowed to play most internet video content that isn't directly user generated, or news. The consequence is that the giants holding the rights to these components are effectively holding the keys to a decent chunk of the internet. For a browser specifically made for synced playback of movies, they essentially hold the keys to all of it. The big movie studios simply won't allow either streaming or download without you using one of these solutions on both ends of the stream. The author applied for some form of license of the purportedly free and open Widevine DRM component which is used/approved by almost all big streaming sites. The request was rejected citing a

Read the rest

somewhat odd reason: That the project was open source. This is odd because https://github.com/castlabs/electron-releases is open source, apparently "blessed" by Google/Widevine, and available to use on the only condition you get a license from Widevine. Which should then be impossible? Which leads us to several somewhat plausible conclusions. Either the author requested the wrong licence/needs a feature not available in previously mentioned projects, someone at Widevine made a mistake, or there is a lot of smoke and mirrors going on to either make it seem Widevine is accessible to anyone when it truly isn't.

In I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

smaddock·Apr 2, 2019

I'm not aware of Castlabs fork working without a production build [1]. I don't think there would be a way for open source users to be able to use a production signed release. Still waiting to hear back more from Widevine. [1] https://github.com/castlabs/electron-releases/issues/33#issu...

In I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

smaddock·Apr 2, 2019

I asked for a license agreement to use the Castlabs fork of Electron, which supports Widevine. https://github.com/castlabs/electron-releases

In I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

smaddock·Mar 11, 2019Submission

Ask HN: Has anyone completed a license agreement with Google Widevine?

I'm building my own Chromium-based browser with Electron [1] and I'd like to be able to support DRM-enabled content like Netflix. In order to do so, the browser must support Verified Media Path (VMP) to verify the authenticity of the device platform. And to support VMP, a license agreement (LA) with Widevine must be completed. [2] Contacting Widevine has been... difficult, with no response after 3 months. I know there have been a few others with similar experiences. [3] Has anyone been able to complete a LA with Widevine? What was your experience like? [1] https://github.com/samuelmaddock/metastream [2] https://github.com/castlabs/electron-releases#licensing [3] https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/12427

1 points · Open discussion