DishAnywhere + Linux?

bchandler02

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Mar 26, 2006
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Anyone here use the current web based DishAnywhere player on a Linux system? I found a few posts from 2013 that said it wasnt supported, but others said it worked anyway. I'm considering going back to Linux this weekend and this is the only program remaining that is a MUST have.
 
Linux user here. Last I knew it didn't work. It required a Windows/Mac browser plug-in. Dish doesn't care about you otherwise.

Has stopped mattering for us as Dish's cumbersome and restrictive means for managing DVR content has pushed us to other solutions and making us less and less of a Dish user.
 
I did some testing on this using Ubuntu and booting from the CD. I didn't bother installing it fully, as this was just for a test, but it looks there may be hope for those that want to mess with it.

In Firefox, I downloaded a plugin to change the user agent. This allowed the dish page to try and install it, but the install failed due to Firefox compatability.

Next, I downloaded Chrome and found another plugin called "User-Agent Switcher". This allows you to tell the browser to identify as windows, which tricks the Dish site. However, when installing the plug in, I get a message "NPAPI Plugins are not supported". A quick google search reveals that NPAPI plugin support ended in Chrome 42, and the current version is 44. So, it looks like you could make this work if you can get your hands on an older version of Chrome.

I'm probably going to dual boot the system, so I may play with this later when I have more time. Hopefully the info above will help others if they are trying this and we can all find a solution.
 
I'm not sure what you're going to accomplish by spoofing the browser ID. Surely the DRM is handled by a Windows binary. (I have no idea whether you can run plugins with Wine or something.)
 
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No and yes. I am able to watch dishanywhere in fedora 21 using boxes running a windows layer. Firefox downloaded and installed the DA helper no problem. Friday, I fedupped to 22 and tested it this morning, it still works. Absolutely solid. I also tried to used ARCWielder but dishaywhere keeps crashing. I do find boxes great in 21, but a bit bloated in 22.
 
No and yes. I am able to watch dishanywhere in fedora 21 using boxes running a windows layer.
In my book, you're not watching DishAnywhere in Linux then. You're watching it in Windows and then channeling that Windows output into a window in your Linux session.

Many of us want a clean Linux environment without the taint or hassle of dealing with hacked-in Windows components. Unfortunately, there is no Linux way to watch DishAnywhere as the browser plug-in only works on Windows or Mac.
 
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Would it be easier to accomplish your goal if you invested in a Slingbox and used that to stream? Slingbox is actually a little better experience than DishAnywhere. I presume you are still launching DishAnywhere from your mobile device to transfer recordings to the mobile device? Keep us all posted. I respect the reasons many prefer Linux.
 
Not really.
Dish appears to have invested in the Slingbox interface and it's much improved over the generic sling also, dish comes with hopper + sling for many users so that's an extra expense for most dish customers for several years.
 
Would it be easier to accomplish your goal if you invested in a Slingbox and used that to stream? Slingbox is actually a little better experience than DishAnywhere. I presume you are still launching DishAnywhere from your mobile device to transfer recordings to the mobile device? Keep us all posted. I respect the reasons many prefer Linux.

As someone who recently tried a Slingbox M1, I cannot agree with you. If all you want to do is watch a recording or live TV from beginning to end, sure, it works great. If you want to FF or RW or skip forward or back, it loses connection fairly quickly.
 
It's not exactly a "clean Linux environment", but I have installed and run DishAnywhere in an Android emulator on Linux. Since Android runs on a Linux kernel, I'd call it a bit "cleaner" than running a Windows emulator at least... :)
 
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