Thread to work on getting Hulu back on Boxee Box

[boulderado]

Hoping we can work together to get Hulu working on Boxee again, starting with the client version then moving the fix to the boxee box.

I assume Boxee is accessing a URL like http://rss.hulu.com/HuluPopularVideosToday?format=xml and identifying as Boxee browser in the user agent string. So what user agent is Boxee using, and how do we change this?
What else would we need to do? I'll post updates if I get hulu working on boxee on my macbook.

[chrischampion]

I'm a Palm Pre user - I have relied not on Palm/HP, but on a third party to develop a way to modify the system. As other posters have mentioned in other threads, Boxee can't really get their hands too dirty hacking the browser ID.

We need a BoxeeInternals.org

Anyone? The domain is available. I'll pitch in the $10 for registration.

[jinx]

In the game of cat and mouse, no one ever wins. Didn't you ever watch Tom & Jerry?

Hulu's stance on blocking is retarded. We all agree. But it's their company.

The idea of having to rely on Boxee to constantly keep up with "tricking" Hulu into allowing access to their content via Boxee just isn't realistic.

Whether it comes down to watching premium shows on satellite networks or even getting software without having to pay for it, a lot of times, it's something really trivial like just having to change a key or a code somewhere

You know what, though? At some point, it becomes more hassle than it's worth.

I'd rather pay a couple bucks a month and not have to deal with any of it than constantly have new updates and temporary fixes to get around the protections on Hulu and other providers. There's a price I'm willing to pay for consistent access (it's probably less than the current price of Hulu Plus, but that's another topic)

[rpmiles]

I get it just fine on Boxee Box using playon software, netflix and MTV too

[CrashX]

Have you tried using fancast.com via Boxee Browser 1.0 ?

[boulderado]

In the game of cat and mouse, no one ever wins. Didn't you ever watch Tom & Jerry?

The idea of having to rely on Boxee to constantly keep up with "tricking" Hulu into allowing access to their content via Boxee just isn't realistic.


No offense, but you're not very technical are you? "tricking" Hulu in this sense should be fairly trivial, if configured properly there is no way for a Hulu server to differentiate between the boxee browser and any other webkit browser, chrome, safari etc, which they do not block.

Boxee the corporation may have to bow to pressure from content providers with nonsensical restrictions, but that does not mean we as customers need to as well. btw - I've already got hulu working on boxee .9 on mac by spoofing the user agent string via a http header rewrite script, so it can be done.

[stevo81989]

No offense, but you're not very technical are you? "tricking" Hulu in this sense should be fairly trivial, if configured properly there is no way for a Hulu server to differentiate between the boxee browser and any other webkit browser, chrome, safari etc, which they do not block.

Boxee the corporation may have to bow to pressure from content providers with nonsensical restrictions, but that does not mean we as customers need to as well. btw - I've already got hulu working on boxee .9 on mac by spoofing the user agent string via a http header rewrite script, so it can be done.

It is also very against Hulu's wishes. if you want Hulu Plus, you play by the rules. And yes, feel free to hack it. boxee will not help you, but they probably wont stop you. Cant wait for a boxee box jailbreak

[pcgizzmo]

I get it just fine on Boxee Box using playon software, netflix and MTV too

Can you give a small synopsis on how to get PlayOn onto the Boxee Box? Thanks...

[judgeschambers]

Hulu was removed due to the agreement (finally) made with boxee. The friendship works only if reg hulu goes away and plus comes on board. Sorta a "meet us half way" for both sides.

I'll be signing up for Plus again now that it's on boxee and I killed my Cable TV 2 weeks ago. I'll be set with Plus, boxee network tv content and netflix dvd rentals. At least it works for me....

[dispute21]

Can you give a small synopsis on how to get PlayOn onto the Boxee Box? Thanks...

If you run Playon software and add a source in Boxee it will automatically see it as a UPNP device and you can go through the Playon menu to access hulu content

[jwbrint]

If you run Playon software and add a source in Boxee it will automatically see it as a UPNP device and you can go through the Playon menu to access hulu content

This works great on my Boxee Box!

[Vandetta]

No offense, but you're not very technical are you? "tricking" Hulu in this sense should be fairly trivial, if configured properly there is no way for a Hulu server to differentiate between the boxee browser and any other webkit browser, chrome, safari etc, which they do not block.

Boxee the corporation may have to bow to pressure from content providers with nonsensical restrictions, but that does not mean we as customers need to as well. btw - I've already got hulu working on boxee .9 on mac by spoofing the user agent string via a http header rewrite script, so it can be done.

Mind sharing? I'm under the impression that there is a line somewhere that defines what browser boxee is identified as. I used an override but that messes up flash. Is changing the useragent string different on the new version of boxee which uses webkit instead of xulrunner?

This was the closest I got- but I wonder if the dev's are going to remove this completely unless you have a plus account.


Okay I've been trying to figure this out on my HTPC but I might have to use my regular computer since typing on this tiny remote is hard.

I'm getting close though. I think this would work on Boxee box since its running linux.

http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/2691/close1.th.png (http://img580.imageshack.us/i/close1.png/)

I still can't find the user agent string line. Boxee is using a web apps engine called xulrunner which is what is now currently Prism- it basically allows you to make a web page into a stand alone application.

Basically Boxee is being blocked because the web browser string it uses is flagged by hulu. It uses the same flash that goes with windows or whatever os you're using so it can't be blocked in the same way googletv is.

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/7582/close2k.th.png (http://img191.imageshack.us/i/close2k.png/)

I used an override but that isn't the correct way to do it maybe someone who knows more than me can just post where the line for the user agent is so we can change it. If the mouse worked I'd be able to click ok to watch the vid. The override for the user agent doesn't work because Hulu still sees the original entry for the useragent- which I'm kinda lost as to where that is.

[wandy]

I don't really watch Hulu content much (really ever), but I still get annoyed at seeing it blocked. It's pretty trivial to put in a squid proxy in place and have it rewrite headers. I imagine you might be able to do something similar with Apache if you were so inclined, but here's what I've come up with.

First you have to build squid proxy with --enable-http-violations, or else the header rewrite (and tons of other fun options) aren't available.

Edit squid.conf, add the following line:


header_replace User-Agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/533.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) ScrewYouHulu/0.0.1


Start up the squid proxy, and adjust proxy settings in Boxee to point to it (default port is 3128).

I ran all this through Linux, though there are Windows builds of Squid available at http://squid.acmeconsulting.it/ but I don't know if they have the required build option of --enable-http-violations. Even if they do, this fix is far from perfect, it lets you "watch" Hulu in Boxee, but all the controls are missing and it does not go full screen, so you're left with a tiny box of Hulu video in the center of the screen.

It may be easy enough to bring up full screen, may just need a small smattering of Javascript ala http://developer.boxee.tv/JavaScript_API but I haven't begun poking at that yet.

[Bixiee]

I get it just fine on Boxee Box using playon software, netflix and MTV too

What's the point of buying a standalone box if you still need a PC running?


No offense, but you're not very technical are you? "tricking" Hulu in this sense should be fairly trivial, if configured properly there is no way for a Hulu server to differentiate between the boxee browser and any other webkit browser, chrome, safari etc, which they do not block.

Boxee the corporation may have to bow to pressure from content providers with nonsensical restrictions, but that does not mean we as customers need to as well. btw - I've already got hulu working on boxee .9 on mac by spoofing the user agent string via a http header rewrite script, so it can be done.

For now - they are not blocking GoogleTV by using something as trivial as a user-agent. Flash is a programming language which has routines to report on which OS it is running. You'd have to do some serious 'research' to get around that.



It is also very against Hulu's wishes. if you want Hulu Plus, you play by the rules. And yes, feel free to hack it. boxee will not help you, but they probably wont stop you. Cant wait for a boxee box jailbreak

But Hulu Plus is Hulu Minus isn't it? You pay for it, there are still commercials, and many shows are not available there (but are in the free version).

[dimaspivak]

But Hulu Plus is Hulu Minus isn't it? You pay for it, there are still commercials, and many shows are not available there (but are in the free version).

To be fair, you pay much more for cable TV and, last time I checked, Comedy Central and MTV have commercials, too. Not to say that I like being forced to watch repetitive Bud Light ads, but let's compare apples to apples.

Regarding content, it all comes down to the content distributors repeating the mistakes of the music industry in terms of embracing consumer freedom. Just as the record companies eventually realized the problem with restricting distribution with DRM, so too will the studios.

[jerryjoh]

To be fair, you pay much more for cable TV and, last time I checked, Comedy Central and MTV have commercials, too. Not to say that I like being forced to watch repetitive Bud Light ads, but let's compare apples to apples.
The money paid for cable is for the lines, equipment and "service" provided by the cable companies. The ads on MTV and Comedy Central are for their revenue.

Hulu Plus gets the revenue from the service and from the ads. IMHO That's not apples to apples.

[outz]

Hulu was removed due to the agreement (finally) made with boxee. The friendship works only if reg hulu goes away and plus comes on board. Sorta a "meet us half way" for both sides.

I'll be signing up for Plus again now that it's on boxee and I killed my Cable TV 2 weeks ago. I'll be set with Plus, boxee network tv content and netflix dvd rentals. At least it works for me....

Boxee has hulu plus now? When did this happen

[gmd024]

Boxee has hulu plus now? When did this happen

Hulu Plus on Boxee hasn't happened yet - if you look at the post you quoted, you'll see it's more than 14 months old