As Google modernizes their Chrome web browser, Sling has alerted customers that they’re unprepared to continue streaming support at this time.
As part of their 64-bit upgrade process, Google is discontinuing the support of 32-bit browser extensions for Mac OS X and Windows computers. Since the current version of Watch on Slingbox.com for Mac and PC uses a 32-bit browser extension, it is therefore no longer supported by the latest version of the Chrome browser. You won’t be able to stream from your Slingbox using the latest version of the Chrome browser. We are in the process of addressing this issue and are expecting a temporary interruption of the free, web-based Slingplayer service for Chrome browsers version 39 and above.
While Sling has once again released a desktop client (yes!), it’s incomplete and support hasn’t been extended to most models (not to mention the software is next to impossible to find) — so that’s not an option for most impacted by this news. Indeed, in speaking with Sling last June, I got the sense that their player intentions were somewhat in flux… so it’ll be interesting to see where we ultimately land. For the interim, I guess us Slingbox owners have one more reason to keep Yahoo’s Firefox around.