Use A Rooted Android Device? It’s Time To Kiss Netflix Goodbye

If you’ve been looking for a good reason to not root your Android device, Netflix has kindly given you one. Out of nowhere, users of rooted Android devices discovered over the weekend that Netflix simply wouldn’t work, and no simple reinstall would be able to fix it. In fact, Netflix has hid the app on the Google Play Store entirely from rooted users. Interestingly, installing the app via APK apparently allows the service to continue working, but it seems certain that won’t remain the case for long.

The reason? Piracy, of course. Android by default is very locked-down, and that’s ideal for those publishing content with a DRM layer. That includes Netflix, which can stream 4K content over Android, but can’t on most desktop PCs (or notebooks), since most hardware doesn’t include the hardware security for those streams (Intel Kaby Lake or AMD Ryzen are needed for 4K desktop use).

While a rooted device doesn’t automatically make it possible to bypass a stream’s security to allow recording, it does make it possible to install the tools that could. As Engadget notes, version 5.0 of the Netflix app uses Google’s Widewine DRM solution to keep it secure, so ultimately, this move isn’t a huge surprise.

What’s unfortunate about this is that re-rooting a device can sometimes be trickier than rooting it in the first place; sometimes, solutions don’t immediately exist. The goal of most people is to simply root their device and leave it that way, not re-root it again down-the-road. Some users might find themselves in a rough spot, with the only option of recovery being a reimaging of their devices stock ROM.

Whatever the solution is, it goes without saying that this move is sure to upset a lot of people.