Google recently launched a new Videos app which allows users to rent movies from the Android Market movies section and stream them to phones or tablets running Google Android 2.2 and up. There’s just one catch: the Google Videos app doesn’t work if you’ve rooted your device or if you’re running a custom ROM. But it didn’t take hackers long to figure out how to modify the app so that it can work on rooted devices.
Many users root their phones or tablets in order to gain access to settings that are normally blocked or to change the look, feel, or behavior of their device.
Google and other streaming video providers have to work out deals with movie studios and other content distributors, so it’s not surprising that this sort of app often doesn’t work with rooted devices — because root users may be able to circumvent security measures to download and save videos that they’ve only paid to rent.
But a member of the sdx-developers forum has published a modified version of the Google Videos app which does work on rooted devices. It does this by simply bypassing the service that normally checks to see if your device has been rooted.
The developer makes it clear that the app does not circumvent the DRM copy-protection software. You can’t use it to stream movies for free or download files, for instance.
As an interesting sidenote — the hacked Google videos app was actually released a few days before Google officially added support for Android 2.2 Froyo and Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but the hacked version works perfectly on those platforms.
If you’ve already installed the new app, you’ll need to uninstall it before trying the hacked version for rooted devices.
via Droid Life
