Netflix Says No To Unlocked Android Smartphones (androidpolice.com) 255
An anonymous reader writes: Last week Netflix app started showing up as "incompatible" on the Play Store for rooted and unlocked Android devices. However, the app itself continued to work fine, leading some to think it could have been an accident. However, Netflix has now confirmed to blog AndroidPolice that blocking modified devices from downloading the app was intentional. This is the full statement: "With our latest 5.0 release, we now fully rely on the Widevine DRM provided by Google; therefore, many devices that are not Google-certified or have been altered will no longer work with our latest app and those users will no longer see the Netflix app in the Play Store."
So pirate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Netflix works because it is easier than piracy. Ejecting the very small number of rooted android users won't stop people ripping Netflix content when you can still watch the movies on a computer...
Re:So pirate? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Exactly, from experience, the tech company doesn't always have a say in the technology they use if they want to have access to content from large distributors.
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If they actually had any third-party content nowadays, your argument would make perfect sense.
Re:So pirate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So pirate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ejecting the very small number of rooted android users won't stop people ripping Netflix content when you can still watch the movies on a computer...
There's a lot to be said that they probably don't care about the very small number of users who have rooted their phones; it will negatively affect a small number of users, but the impact to their bottom line is almost certainly lower than if they had to license (or develop) a different DRM system that would accommodate rooted phones.
Re:So pirate? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's always the other option.
DON'T DEVELOP A DRM SYSTEM AT ALL!
There are many advantages to this approach:
1) you don't piss off your rooted users (even if a small number)
2) it's much cheaper to implement
3) it has EXACTLY the same effect on piracy as a full blown billion dollar DRM scheme.
Re:So pirate? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem here is that the companies they license content from won't allow them to simply not use DRM. Netflix could go this route, and then they wouldn't have any 3rd-party content at all.
Personally, I have two thoughts about this:
1) Who watches TV shows on their *phone*??? Honestly, I can't even imagine.
2) Why does the phone need to be non-rooted? I use Netflix just fine on my Linux system, by using Google Chrome (it's the only thing I use that browser for in fact). I don't have to have a corporate-controlled OS, only a corporate-controlled DRMed browser for that one purpose. So why can't Netflix do things that way on phones for those weirdos who want to watch Netflix on a phone?
Re:So pirate? (Score:5, Informative)
Android isn't just phones, it is also set top TV boxes now. Many of those devices come pre-rooted, making the entire market for those devices totally fucked in terms of Netflix now.
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Android isn't just phones, it is also set top TV boxes now. Many of those devices come pre-rooted, making the entire market for those devices totally fucked in terms of Netflix now.
You mean the market of Android devices with all those piracy apps?
I wonder how many of those people are interested in being paying Netflix subscribers to begin with.
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Who watches TV shows on their *phone*?
A lot of phones and tablets have HDMI ports (or, at least, dongles that provide an HDMI port), so you can plug them into a projector or big TV easily.
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1) Who watches TV shows on their *phone*??? Honestly, I can't even imagine.
Well, anyone who uses a Chromecast, or wants to watch something while waiting for a flight, or laundry or anything else that requires not being home and sitting in one place for a while. Not to mention the throng of parents who use it to shut their kids up when they're in public.
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Kids, when the parents want them to shut up for 3 minutes at a restaurant so they can place their order with the waitress without constantly having to yell at Billy to stop pulling Susie's hair.
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Funny, when I was young, it only took a stern look or word from my Dad or Mom...and I knew to shut it.
Amazing what earlier ass whoopings did to instill a bit of discipline into me....and wasn't needed later in life, even at a very young age.
I guess parents just no longer have control of their offspring anymore, or
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Chromecast much? Chromecast and other HDMI dongles are essentially useless if you can't control from your phone.
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1) Who watches TV shows on their *phone*??? Honestly, I can't even imagine.
Plenty really - in London I spend atleast 90 minutes per day on public transport. Doing some TV watching is a very good way of distracting from the unpleasantness of the experience...
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1) Who watches TV shows on their *phone*??? Honestly, I can't even imagine.
How about people eating lunch in a breakroom at work?
Re:So pirate? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Aside from a small number of people who would've done so anyway, no one is going to be ripping Netflix content in response to this, for the simple reason that the phone is the fallback we rely on only when we have absolutely nothing else to use. But because Netflix runs on basically every device, that scenario doesn't play out for most people with any sort of regularity.
At this moment, I have 7 different devices hooked directly up to my TV with which I can watch Netflix (Playstations 3 and 4, Xbox 360, Wii
Kodi boxes (Score:5, Informative)
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I was able to find an APK and install Netflix on my rooted phone in less than 5 minutes.
Does it contain malware? Do you know? How?
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My wife watches stuff on her phone all the time on trips, in the kitchen while she's cooking, or in the laundry room folding laundry but it's more like a phablet.... I couldn't do it my phone is much smaller.
Re:So pirate? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's security theatre, for the benefit of copyright holders who don't understand computers but were told by a DRM salesman they needed it to stop everyone watching for free.
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If you really want to rip Netflix, just use Chrome on Linux. You can screenshot Netflix in Chrome on Linux without issue, so I'm assuming the framebuffer is totally 'unprotected'; you can presumably just capture the video through the usual means.
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For me, Neflix is not only easier than piracy but it's a lot less trouble. Trying to match subtitles for a given DVD rip is like trying to win the lottery.
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Yarr, you're welcome to re-join the crew mateys, if ye haven't become a bunch of lilly-livered DRM-lubbers!
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MST3K The Return for one...
But I'm glad you get along fine. Some of us like to watch TV. I realize you are a superior human being in every possible way, but do take pity upon us lower life forms and our cheap entertainments. We have ascended the spheres as you have. Mind you, I bet you do miss the dildos.
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I watch like four hours a week of TV, even less for the last few weeks as I've been studying my ass off for a final. But why should I be ashamed of liking dumbass TV shows? If the alternative is being a humorless alt-right troll who gets his jollies being a sociopathic prick on the Internet, then I'll take the idiot box.
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Ah, yes, those alt-right hipsters. Gotta watch out for those guys.
Better way of saying this might be "yeah, I watch a few hours of dumbass TV shows a week - I'm not proud of it, but there are far more embarrassing habits, after all."
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Ah, yes, those alt-right hipsters. Gotta watch out for those guys.
Just because they may not have beards or wear skinny jeans doesn't mean the right wing is hipster-free
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One can train oneself not to care about ephemera. One can also train oneself to lead a life that has no free time, because one's life is itself a creative act.
I imagine that sounds very 'arrogant' but I'd rather live that way than to be just a consumer. Or even a consumer, period.
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But it's rooted... (Score:2, Insightful)
...surely you can make the Netflix app think it's on a walled-garden phone. You have root rights!
Re:But it's rooted... (Score:4, Insightful)
You'd think,
But for all the brilliant developers out there, nobody has ever created any way of bypassing root detection on phones.
You'd think it would be a no brainer, sandbox the app, and feed it the inputs it wants so it thinks it's on a stock device, but somehow nobody has ever done that.
Instead there have been hundreds of different services that pretend to hide the fact that your phone is rooted, but not one of them ever works.
Why can't someone develop an app sandbox? a virtual machine of some form? sure it may slow the app down a bit, but with the power of today's phones, I can't imagine it would be enough to matter.
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You are 'someone'...do it.
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And here is where opensource software completely misses the boat. It is always assumed that anyone with any ideas is ALSO able to implement their idea, including every bit of knowledge required, and all the time and resources. If that person can't it's assumed that the idea itself isn't worth trying.
Hate to tell you this, but just because someone can't implement their own idea, doesn't mean the idea itself is without merit.
Virtual machines have existed quite successfully for many many years, and done correc
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Idea's are a dime a dozen. If you had bothered to look, you would see there are attempts to do, more or less, what you describe. Learn to Google.
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And here is where opensource software completely misses the boat. It is always assumed that anyone with any ideas is ALSO able to implement their idea, including every bit of knowledge required, and all the time and resources.
No, it assumes that anyone *can*. Your idea is a fine one, it's just that nobody with the knowledge to fix the problem has the same itch that you do. You're demanding that "somebody" do something, when *you can!*, and if you can't or won't, then it's within your power to hire someone.
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There used to be an app called RootCloak that worked on the XPosed framework, which when given an application list, would prevent a program from seeing if SuperSU was present or a su binary was installed in the usual directories. However, both the XPosed framework and RootCloak have not been updated for any new release of Android. I used to use this to allow SoftCard to run ages ago.
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Sure, RootCloak used to exist (still does actually), but it never actually hid the fact that you were rooted from any applications, even when it was brand new. There are dozens of those sorts of apps, not one of them has ever actually worked.
The only way to actually win this one is to stop trying to hide one or two indicators that your device is rooted, and start running these stupid apps inside a container that isn't rooted. A fake phone within your real one.
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I really wish phones offered container or VM functionality. That way, I can keep sets of contacts separate, and keep work stuff separate from home stuff. Not hard to do, because the ARM CPU offers "worlds" which are essentially containers... but tend to not be used.
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It's pretty trivial to create separate user profiles on Android, actually. It does exactly what you are looking for.
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I've just never felt the need to do it; I'm sure there are a lot of other people more qualified than me that feel the same way.
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What are you talking about? Magisk works just fine.
It's obviously going to be a continuous cat and mouse game until the corporations finally just give up and realise they're spending millions of dollars to defeat an extremely small minority of users. Imagine if they tried to do this for Windows PCs...there would be a riot.
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They ARE trying to do it for Windows PCs, the only difference is that they haven't yet succeeded there. It's only a matter of time.
As for Magisk... sure... it "works"... if what you're trying to do is make your life more complicated without stopping your applications from detecting that your phone is rooted. I've used it. It works a miniscule fraction of the time. Of course that's far better than anyone else has managed yet, but it's not enough to be able to use your rooted phone for apps from overbearing c
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Idiocy (Score:3)
Yeah, because if I want to steal content, the FIRST device I think of for doing so is MY FUCKING PHONE.
Riiiight.
Never mind that a desktop (or even a laptop) PC is orders of magnitude more powerful and possesses FAR more options for absconding with the content...
Re:Idiocy (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a common theme. Many programs won't run on a rooted phone, but happily run on a computer with admin rights. Unfortunately the most likely "solution" to this obvious double standard isn't for them to start working on rooted phones, it's for users to stop having admin rights on their computers.
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Even admins, should not routinely login as admin or equivalent. Applications/services/daemons that need admin, get admin to only the resources they need. Spend the time.
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You do realize that it's EXACTLY the same on a rooted phone right?
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Okay, phones and even less useful tablets.
Happy now Mr. AC Fuckface?
Hahaha, idiots. (Score:2)
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As the article says, the app works just fine. You just can't install it from Google Play Store. No need for XDA to take care of anything.
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...for now. Judging by their statement, I wouldn't expect that to continue indefinitely.
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Thing is, SafertyNET doesn't stop your phone from being owned by a 3rd party, it only stops your phone from being owned by YOU.
I have a rooted phone, and my bank pops up a warning every time I open the app asking if I'm sure I want to perform such a dangerous operation as banking on a phone where I have root access. But the thing is, I would DEFINITELY not want to do that on a phone where I did NOT have root access, who knows what applications might be spying on me if I didn't have access to firewall them a
System Requirements (Score:2)
Their support people didn't know this and they didn't list it in their requirements, but I'm guessing this is why I've never been able to download shows for offline viewing on my OnePlus One. Cyanogen is probably blocked from that functionality... I guess the Netflix app is pointless for me now because if I have WiFi, I'm watching on my laptop screen and I'm sure as hell not going to watch Netflix using mobile data.
Laptop in a restaurant (Score:2)
if I have WiFi, I'm watching on my laptop screen
Do you carry your laptop everywhere you go? If not, you might be in a restaurant or whatever with Wi-Fi but no laptop. (If so, you're probably like me.)
and I'm sure as hell not going to watch Netflix using mobile data.
T-Mobile USA has a promotion called Binge On [t-mobile.com], which lets video stream providers apply at no charge to have their SD streams exempted from the cap. Amazon, YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Sling are among the participating video providers.
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Do you carry your laptop everywhere you go? If not, you might be in a restaurant or whatever with Wi-Fi but no laptop.
Yes, but that would mean watching a movie or a TV show on my phone, which isn't ever going to happen. I honestly can't imagine why anyone would want this. Maybe for a 9+" tablet, but that's a bit more like carrying your laptop around.
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Waiting to be picked up (Score:2)
What the hell is wrong with being alone with your own thoughts if you are eating alone.
Being alone with one's thoughts for 45 minutes until the next bus comes can become a waste of time, and the restaurant's dining room has better Wi-Fi reception than the bus hut.
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They even stopped supporting devices like the first generation amazon FireTV Stick as won't show up in app search and going directly on amazon's appstore website says both netflix apps are incompatible with it. But of course netflix's support site doesn't mention this. Along with them only allowing up to 720p on Firefox, these arbitrary changes netflix has been doing is making me reconsider keeping my subscription.
Fuck this shit. (Score:2)
I though it was odd that suddenly Netflix disappeared from the play store. I just have a tablet running CM12, and had to download from apkmirror. This is a stupid move. I'll just watch more on Amazon.
Netflix can survive without the tech savvy (Score:2)
Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
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It's no good, their 100% foolproof plan of blocking rooted phones has completely cut off any source for those torrents!
ok... I tried... but I just couldn't type that with a straight face.
Hide My Root (Score:2)
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Hide my root hasn't worked in any other situation, why would this be different?
I have a half dozen apps I'd like to run, but can't because my phone is rooted, I've tried dozens of different root hiding apps, none have ever allowed even a single one of those apps to run.
I don't however want to run any of them badly enough to give up:
- changing my resolution to something that doesn't think I'm trying to use my 5" screen from across the living room. I'm not blind!
- ad blocking
- firewalls
Newsflash, not one of t
Not good for security (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing this does is forcing rooted android users to install Netflix from unofficial installers.
If you can root your phone, you know how to install .apk packages without Google Play Store. They won't be able to find a verified package.
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It's not the only thing it does.
It also makes people just stop using Netflix.
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We've been debating killing Netflix for a while now, as there's plenty of content I can watch on the big screen at home without it, but the recurring theme is that it's the only legal way we can watch stuff on our phones when we're not home (and as difficult as the content providers make it, we do try to do things the legal way, even if it would be far more convenient not to). If Netflix is going to stop doing that, then it stops having any value to me. And no, I'm not giving up my ad blocker, my firewall,
No problem (Score:2)
Thankfully even locked Android phones still support uTorrent, so you can kiss my ass goodbye, Netflix.
No to Netflix (Score:2)
This is a contender for most crack addled management pratfall ever.
I was prescient (Score:2)
It sounds like my decision to ditch Netflix last year was a great one!
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Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:Unlocking? (Score:5, Informative)
If Netflix wants to stay in good with the content providers, it needs to make these shows of strength. This affects such a small group that it's worth a few grumpy rooted phone owners just to show Hollywood they mean business.
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they really believe people are going to use smartphones to rip shows?
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they really believe people are going to use smartphones to rip shows?
Even if Netflix doesn't believe this, one or more publishers licensing motion pictures to Netflix is likely to believe this.
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Also, will Netflix allows me to watch it on my "rooted" PC?
Netflix doesn't have an app on PC and no, the answer you're looking for is no. They will not give you 4k content unless you follow very strict rules as to what software you use to log into their website.
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Sure there is, it's called a web browser. Plus there is also a Windows Store application.
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Yup. I finally found a movie on Crackle that didn't work well with commercials, the Peter Ustinov version of Death on the Nile. The commercial breaks destroyed the building suspense as various potential murderers were identified in the rising action of the second act.
Everything else I've watched on Crackle is acceptable even with intermittent commercials. I also get off the couch more and actually do things.
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Workaround:
1. Buy two Android devices.
2. Root one.
3. Install controller drivers on the rooted one.
4. Install Netflix app on the unrooted one.
It's like the Wii console: Nintendo didn't include DVD Video support because it figured that people who were about to buy a Wii already owned several DVD Video players.
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Yeah, 'cuz we all want to carry TWO phones around because some idiot in hollywood thinks that this will have any affect at all on copyright infringement... yeah... sure...
I have a better idea. If they don't want to sell us the product, we can stop buying it.
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Or install Netflix from a secondary source.
Anyone who rooted their android device, will know how to do that anyway. .apk instead of the offical package in the store.
The only thing they are archiving is forcing people to use a potentially harmful unverified
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It's like the Wii console: Nintendo didn't include DVD Video support because it figured that people who were about to buy a Wii already owned several DVD Video players.
I presume that Nintendo didn't include DVD support because it would have cost more and at least some percentage of Wii purchases were cost-driven.
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Or more precisely, the projected cost-driven purchases by people who already owned a perfectly good DVD player exceeded the projected cost-driven purchases by people who wanted to avoid paying for both a DVD player and a game console.
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Or more precisely, the projected cost-driven purchases by people who already owned a perfectly good DVD player exceeded the projected cost-driven purchases by people who wanted to avoid paying for both a DVD player and a game console.
I don't think that's how the math worked. I think it was "how much cheaper do we have to be than the competitors before we attract people who make final purchasing decisions based on price". DVD support would have required only minor changes to the optical drive to improve its longevity, and actually developing a DVD player app, and of course paying the licensing fees which I suspect was the single largest driver of the decision. If the competition had charged that much more (however much the amount at whic
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I know you're well intentioned and a crappy Android device might be not much to many people.
Yet I can't refrain from this.
What if you're toilet is completely clogged, all your toilets are unworkable but you need to take a dump?
Workaround :
1. Buy your neighbor's house.
2. Kick them out.
3. When you want to take a crap, go to your new house next door.
4. Keep using your original house for all other purposes.
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I wonder if Magisk would work in this case? I highly doubt it. Magisk hasn't stopped any of my other apps from detecting root, why would this be any different?
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I rooted my Android phone to fix the ANT+ modem that the vendor broke with a software update of their own but the community at XDA managed to get going on their releases.
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why would I want anything that would actually encourage me to watch MORE television and as a result, eat MORE crap, and get lest exercise?
Assuming you meant "less exercise", do you spend all your free time doing exercise? What about when it's raining or storming outside?
Not that I spend much time watching movies or TV (I don't have a TV, just my computer, which I sometimes watch Netflix on), but while I like cycling and hiking, I don't do those things if it's pouring rain or ridiculously hot or cold outsid
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But more importantly, why would I want anything that would actually encourage me to watch MORE television and as a result, eat MORE crap, and get lest exercise?
TV causes eating? That's a new one on me. (Or do you mean watching commercials? But who does that?) I watch TV while I exercise - most of the stuff on Netflix is pretty vapid, but still more interesting than staring at the wall.
"Netflix original programming: slightly more interesting than watching paint dry."
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as long as it's ok to install on carrier unlocked (Score:2)
as long as it's ok to install on carrier unlocked phones they should not have to make it a big deal. More is better but under trump don't hope for more.
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So continues the fall of netflix
FTFY