Article

How to Natively Watch Netflix on Raspberry Pi 3

In this article, you are going to learn how to Natively Watch Netflix on the Raspberry Pi 3. The Raspberry Pi is an amazingly affordable device which can achieve so much. A great way to use a Raspberry Pi is as a low cost media center or streaming device. Software like Kodi and Plex can transform the $35 Raspberry Pi into a very powerful media box.

If you really enjoy this article, consider checking out my TechWizTime  YouTube Channel. And for an awesome source of Raspberry Pi Accessories, check out my Raspberry Pi Amazon List. With that said, let’s get the Netflix on Raspberry Pi tutorial started!

What You’ll Need

Getting Netflix on the Raspberry Pi 3

Before we get started, you will need to have installed Raspbian Pixel on your Raspbery Pi. You can write the Raspbian image using the tool Etecher. Once you have done that, we need to boot the Raspberry Pi into Raspbian.

Along the top taskbar, you need to click on the Terminal icon (the black icon with the >_ symbol). Now that the terminal is open we need to type in the following command.

wget https://github.com/kusti8/chromium-build/releases/download/netflix-1.0.0/chromium-browser_56.0.2924.84-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1011.deb

This will start downloading the custom compiled Chromium browser that includes the Widevine DRM. Widevine is required to make Netflix work but is missing from the standard Raspberry Pi Chromium that’s installed by default. The next thing we need to do is install the downloaded package.

sudo dpkg -i chromium-browser_56.0.2924.84-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1011.deb

This should only take a few moments to install. Lastly, we need to reboot the Raspberry Pi, so go to the Raspberry menu and choose Shutdown. Here you just need to choose the Restart option. Please Note: In some circumstances, you may need to reboot up to three times before Netflix works.

Enjoy Netflix on your Raspberry Pi 3

To launch Netflix on the Raspberry Pi, go to the Raspberry menu and under the Internet menu, you need to choose Netflix Launcher. This will automatically start the new pre-compiled Chromium and start at the Netflix page. Make sure you put in your Netflix username and password and you are done!

Raspberry Pi Netflix Completed!

Congratulations, you’ve just installed Netflix on the Raspberry Pi 3. You won’t have to stream from another PC or run any x86 emulation software.

Were you able to get Netflix running? Did you have any problems during the tutorial? Then leave a comment below.

Dereck Frost

I write tech articles and tutorials based around a number of topics.

View Comments

  • Hi, I tried on my Pi 3 but after the second step I've get the following
    pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo dpkg -i chromium-browser_56.0.2924.84-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1011.deb
    (Reading database ... 133588 files and directories currently installed.)
    Preparing to unpack chromium-browser_56.0.2924.84-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1011.deb ...
    Unpacking chromium-browser (56.0.2924.84-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1011) over (56.0.2924.84-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1011) ...
    dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of chromium-browser:
    chromium-browser depends on libxcb-image0; however:
    Package libxcb-image0 is not installed.

    dpkg: error processing package chromium-browser (--install):
    dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
    Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.13-1) ...
    Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.0.2-5) ...
    Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-6) ...
    Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22-1) ...
    Processing triggers for mime-support (3.58) ...
    Errors were encountered while processing:
    chromium-browser
    pi@raspberrypi:~ $

    And Netflix Launcher never opnened.

    • I've looked into the issue and created an installer script that will take care of most issues should they arise. If you are experiencing issues, try this but be aware it does remove CHROMIUM so you may loose settings, bookmarks, history etc.

      https://github.com/TechWizTime/chromium-build

      Instructions are on the GitHub page.

  • I couldn't understand why but after these... it sudenly works!

    pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt-get purge chromium
    Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information... Done
    Package 'chromium' is not installed, so not removed
    You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these:
    The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    chromium-browser : Depends: libxcb-image0 but it is not going to be installed
    E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).
    pi@raspberrypi:~ $ apt-get -f install
    E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13: Permission denied)
    E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you root?
    pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sufo apt-get -f install
    bash: sufo: command not found
    pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt-get -f install
    Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information... Done
    Correcting dependencies... Done
    The following extra packages will be installed:
    libxcb-image0
    The following NEW packages will be installed:
    libxcb-image0
    0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 11 not upgraded.
    1 not fully installed or removed.
    Need to get 23.1 kB of archives.
    After this operation, 32.8 kB of additional disk space will be used.
    Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
    Get:1 http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/ jessie/main libxcb-image0 armhf 0.4.0-1 [23.1 kB]
    Fetched 23.1 kB in 2s (8,785 B/s)
    Selecting previously unselected package libxcb-image0:armhf.
    (Reading database ... 133588 files and directories currently installed.)
    Preparing to unpack .../libxcb-image0_0.4.0-1_armhf.deb ...
    Unpacking libxcb-image0:armhf (0.4.0-1) ...
    Setting up libxcb-image0:armhf (0.4.0-1) ...
    Setting up chromium-browser (56.0.2924.84-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1011) ...
    Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.19-18+deb8u9) ...
    pi@raspberrypi:~ $

    • I'm going to give this a shot myself and see if I can simplify it for other users. Thanks for letting me know!!

    • With you and Jonathan, they helped me to finish with days of trial and error. Finally I have netflix. Thank you very much, and sorry for my english, I wanted to let you know. Greetings from Argentina.

  • managed to get this going but the frame rates are so bad it is hardly worth it! Is there a way to improve this or do I need to try again?

    • It's the same for me. Bad quality and bad framerate. That goes for youtube as well, so I guess it's something to do with the operating system and graphic acceleration. My guess is that it's this bad for everyone. It's frustrating that it's like that when something like OSMC on a raspberry pi plays without hitch. Netflix sucks for not creating their own kodi addon.

  • Went through the above steps. Have rebooted the device multiple times, but no Netflix Launcher is appearing under the Internet category. I'm rather disappointed, because these are the clearest instructions I've seen to date for newbie non-tech people like me. I just want to be able to watch Netflix in the bedroom along with playing some awesome old-school games :(

    • For 99% of people, this method works :) In your case, there's a few things you could try. Firstly, from terminal, I would try
      sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
      Then, if you don't mind losing all your bookmarks in Chromium (and settings), try using this script that I created https://github.com/TechWizTime/chromium-build

      That might get you up and running with any luck :)

  • Everything installed like a charm, but I also get the Netflix streaming error "M7121-1331-P7" whenever I open a video to watch. It seems like it's loading for some time, but then gives this error :-(

  • I managed to run netflix, however I cannot run it in fullscreen mode even increasing the GPU, youtube works perfectly even in 1080p after GPU memory increase.

    • Hi, 1080p full screen tv. It does not work properly, it does not work fluid. The resolution in full screen decreases. Any idea?

  • Hi thanks for the excellent write up. I am not very tech savvy especially when it comes to Linux but was able to get Netflix running on my Pi 3. I am curious if the chromium build has a limitation of only using a single thread or if it is something I have done or not done? I see choppy but watchable playback and only 50% CPU use.

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